In Dayton We Trust

Last night's game...

2011-10-28T12:46:00.004-04:00

Reactions from Viva El Birdos and Lone Star Ball:

9th inning:

...

10th inning:

...

11th inning:

...

So, Rangers fans ... feeling good about today?

Dallas Morning News

A simple thought that has been running through my mind again and again

2010-03-24T04:43:00.001-04:00

You know, even at a far remove -- geographically at least -- from my hometown baseball team, it's not very hard to feel the positive vibes coming out of camp. I feel very, very good things about this season, and if I'm proven wrong, well, that doesn't change the reality of these feelings at this present moment, when all teams are 0-0 and anything seems possible.

Fake Dayton Moore

2010-01-26T11:30:00.003-05:00

http://twitter.com/fakedaytonmoore makes me want to come back. Ah, Twitter. Alas, I think this blog has hit its logical end point. I just g-chatted to a friend these series of messages:

you konw
i'm kind of thinking to myself this lineup isn't bad
dejesus, pod, butler, jacobs, gordon ankiel
guillen, buck, shortstop
throw callaspo in there!
not guillen, sorry
jacobs would be dh obviously
that's NOT a bad lineup

I know, I know...

I'm living in the past, and not even some distant past where the Royals were good or challenging for the playoffs. No, I was living in a past where I was expected to expect the Royals to be good, or, more accurately, expecting others to expect the Royals to not be bad. And I just don't have time for that anymore.

But, nonetheless, go Royals, and since blogs never die, so this one won't, but, but, but...

Viva El Birdos, indeed

2009-10-09T03:31:00.001-04:00

If you're in need of a chuckle today, go check out SB Nation's Cardinals blog, like these comments. But don't linger too long, you might start feeling an odd combination of sadness, bemusement and sympathy.

An amazing statistic via Joe Posnanski

2009-09-10T02:01:00.002-04:00

In the book Jitterbug Perfume, which is the sort of book that so poignantly asks all the universe's most important questions (e.g., life, death) that even if you hate Tom Robbins, you'll appreciate and respect this work, the caprine god Pan slowly dematerializes as fewer and fewer people believe in him. It's how gods "die," as he puts it.

Our coverage of these Royals is kind of like that: slowly disappearing, soon incomplete sentences and broken links.

But this is too good to not share: Joe Poz, near the end of a really hilarious column for SI:

I'm going to give you an amazing statistic about Kansas City Royals pitcher Zack Greinke. He is, unquestionably, the best pitcher in the American League. He leads the league in ERA, complete games, WHIP and home runs per nine innings. He is second in strikeouts, and fifth in walks per game.

No, I haven't given you the amazing statistic yet.

He leads the league in shutouts. He has made 20 starts where he allowed two runs or less, most in the American League. He has made 24 starts where he allowed three runs or less, most in the American League. He has only had two starts all year where he has given up five runs in a game.

No, haven't given you the stat. Not yet.

Greinke's first 10 starts, he had an 0.84 ERA. His last five starts, he has a 1.38 ERA. Greinke himself has a higher slugging percentage (.333) than the right-handed batters who have faced him this year (.318).

And no, that's not the stat either. Here's the stat that will blow your mind.

The Kansas City Royals have a losing record in games that Zack Greinke has started this season.

Catching up, kind of

2009-07-16T22:14:00.000-04:00

In the context of recent Royals events, my last two posts could not have been more off the mark. I understand this, trust me. They were deliberately -- and I'm just throwing out a few words here -- mild-tempered, light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek, non-Royals-related. On the other hand, as far as I can tell, the prevailing attitude among bloggers and commentators falls somewhere between exasperation and resignation, or, on a slightly different axis, rage and despair. The fallout to the Yuniesky Betancourt trade has been damn near nuclear, and let's just say someone ought to check if Rany's still alive after his upcoming visit to the K. (His blog's tagline: "July 10th, 2009. The day the music died.")

I had no idea, however, the extent of the animosity towards the Royals' front office until I spent a couple hours today trolling the blogosphere (with a VPN, of course, as Blogger's blocked in China). Just click on any random link in my blogroll and you'll see (Royals Review has been leading the charge, e.g., here, here and here). The line of disgust and antipathy and -- could it really be? -- hatred has been sunk so deep that even some blog readers have begun to cringe and ask something to the effect of, "Eek... really?"

A sampling of the comments to Rany's 4,254-word renunciation of his fanhood:

Travis: Bull shit. I don't buy you're quiting on the Royals. As much as I like your blog, I'm not begging you to keep writing it. We don't need diehards giving up whenever they get pissed. It's one thing to bitch about the Royals moves, it's another to quit on your team for good. Calm down, have a shot of whiskey, and lets hope for some more moves at the deadline.

jason y: its a sad day to be a royals fan....but how is that different from any other day? when you're at the bottom the only place to go is up. dont lose faith.

(This one is kind of awesome) Keith: Rany, I kept checking your blog Friday night. I thought perhaps you pulled the plug on the whole thing. As an almost casual fan I was bothered by the trade immediately. If I've heard of Cortes then he must be valuable. This is clearly a lost season and I thought it was time to unload contracts and pick up players for the future. I've quit the Chiefs but the Royals are still meaningful. I think it helps not to care too much. Family and friends are whats really important.

Scott: And I also agree with Travis. You can't just give up. It doesn't work that way. I'm 27 years old (Betancourt's age! And I'm not nearly near my peak, thank you very much) and have never known the Royals to be good. Ever. But, here I sit, just waiting for what will definitely be one of the greatest moments of my life when the Royals finally "find a nut."

stpat: ...All I can say is stick with them, if for no other reason than to give us (the Fans) a legit voice.

Ryan: I don't really see the big deal. It's not like they traded Hosmer or Aaron Crow or someone like that. Also, unlike the Jacobs deal, it's not like they are blocking someone better on the farm with this deal either. I really don't see it having that much of a negative impact. Maybe it costs Glass some money if he continues to tank but I don't really care about that. Someone other that TPJ has got to play short and I don't see any other options out there.

And another thing, I'm sick of hearing people talk about I'm not going to anymore games, I'm done with this team, I'm not wearing anymore Royals gear.......good. I'm with Travis and Scott. We don't need you around making ridiculous claims about your loyalty. If you leave, stay gone. I don't want to see you back when the tide turns. And it will turn.....

Matt Berger: Rany im 20 years old, ive never really seen a winning Royals season 2003 doesn't really count. I want to give up, I want to stop caring but I can't and I haven't so you can't either. Might I suggest you keep being critical and hope you're comments reach ears who belong to someone in position to make decisions. You have a bully pulpit keep using it. I look forward to meeting you Saturday.

So on and so forth.

I admit I did not read all 134 comments (I will never understand what would ever motivate someone, like ejfunk, to write a near-500-word response to a blog post; I mean that in the best way possible). I will also admit that despite the many affirmations of loyalty to the Kansas City Royals, I was still dismayed, or unconvinced of one thing or another. What that thing is exactly I can't or don't want to articulate. I feel as if the world's blown up and I was on the moon.

Here's the thing: when you live somewhere that's removed from baseball, you lose touch with the rhythm of the season. You forget if those 1-0 losses were pitched by Brian Bannister or Zack Greinke, or if Luke Hochevar's still in the rotation, or why the name "Bruce Chen" is in the box score. I check the scores every morning and feel a distinct pang of disappointment when I see the Royals have lost, an unmistakable pick-me-up, like the first sip of fresh-brewed coffee (in terrifically short supply here), when they've won, but still -- you lose perspective. You find yourself clicking on "standings" every other week, something you shouldn't need to if you're watching Baseball Tonight every other day.

And it is here that I admit that until today, when I had the good fortune to read the blogosphere's reactions, the Betancourt trade didn't bother me all that much. I didn't think much of it. I read Bob Dutton's article and felt it disingenuous to some degree, but I really didn't think it worth my time to fuss over yet another trade of a couple minor leaguers for a middling position player.

Now I wonder...

Those who run counter to the zeitgeist risk inducing something much worse than irrelevance, a pit where this blog has been fast descending (damn you, Great Firewall of China) -- disdain. I don't want that. Those who sigh and curse, pound their fists and wring their hands while following this maddening yet beautiful, wonderfully intricate and fascinating game deserve better than yet another loathsome Royals commentator.

In other words, I'm not entirely sure whether In Dayton We Trust has a place in this current landscape. We're taking a vacation until the steam evaporates off Royals Land.

I won't go so far as to quote Keith -- "Family and friends are what's really important" -- but right now I am going to slip on my flip-flops, walk to the convenience store and buy an ice cream cone.

Zack Greinke wins the All-Star game

2009-07-15T10:08:00.003-04:00

Roy Halladay really sucked, huh? Compared to Greinke at least.

Z Greinke

1.0

10-8

0.00

And look: wit!

JAYSON STARK: Yeah, not to suggest it's been a while since the American League lost an All-Star Game or anything, but after the AL had ripped yet another All-Star triumph off its relentless July assembly line Tuesday night, we couldn't find a single member of this year's AL All-Stars who could correctly answer the following straightforward trivia question:
Do you even remember the last time the National League won an All-Star Game?
...
On and on it went, nobody quite recalling, until Royals pitcher Zack Greinke decided to get sneaky -- and turn the tables on us by asking US a question.
"The last time they won one," he wondered, "who played in it?"
Hmmm. We hadn't actually done the research on THAT question yet. So we guessed -- incorrectly, by the way -- that it was at least possible that Derek Jeter had.
"Yeah," Greinke laughed. "And probably Stan Musial, too."

And lest you forget, Greinke is more or less Mr. Daytona Beach USA.

POSTSCRIPT: Apologies to these Royals blogs, which should've been on my blogroll long before now: Everything Royals, Tangled Up in (Royal) Blue and Royals Primacy. And if you're wondering, yes, I recently learned about at least two of the above due to the Yuniesky Betancourt trade. See, there is something positive to come out of it, and we haven't even given it time to play out yet.

"If I had a good curveball I wouldn't be president"

2009-07-15T08:48:00.004-04:00

From Jeff Caple, ESPN -- Ichiro's come a long way since "two rats screwing in a wool sock," hasn't he?

"My idea, when I saw him, was to say, 'What's up?' to him,'' Ichiro said through the Mariners team interpreter. "But I got nervous. You know, he has that kind of aura about him. So I got nervous and I didn't say that to him. I was a little disappointed about that. But I realized after seeing him today that presidents wear jeans, too. So my hope is that our skipper, Don Wakamatsu, was watching that and we can wear jeans on our flights as well.''

And the NL fails yet again.

POSTSCRIPT: Taking votes now -- Obama in blue jeans: cooler than this?

Because this is pretty damn cool.

The reason Twitter was invented

2009-05-11T11:13:00.006-04:00

Matt Wieters Doesn't Take Pitches...He Shows Them Mercy.

Albert Pujols’ Mother Drafted Matt Wieters First Overall In Her Fantasy League.

Matt Wieters Can Switch-hit From All Five Sides Of The Plate.

In the First Jurassic Park Movie, The Tyrannosaurus Wasn't Chasing The Jeep. Matt Wieters was Chasing The Tyrannosaurus.

Matt Wieters Facts.

We checked www.ZackGreinkeFacts.com. URL not taken, surprisingly.

Zack Greinke Is The Reason The Suicide Rate Is 95 Percent Among Americans Named Zach.

POSTSCRIPT: Recommended.

Poor A-Rod

2009-05-08T22:29:00.003-04:00

Watching Gilgameche against the Angels, and in the bottom of the 1st we got this classic exchange about Alex Rodriguez:

Angels announcer 1 (paraphrasing): That says a lot, with all the distractions and the pressure, to step up and hit a home run in your first time up.

Angels announcer 2, without missing a beat: Somebody probably tipped him to what was coming.

And that's only one of the reasons I'm enjoying this telecast. Another: Meche is much better than Matt Palmer.

UPDATE, minutes later: I hate MLB.tv.

Your read for the day: Rany

2009-05-08T00:38:00.001-04:00

Game on.:

I think that the city is ready to embrace this team. Last night’s game garnered a 7.5 rating, the highest in the history of Fox Sports Kansas City. The previous highest-rated game was…the game before, with a 6.4 rating.

More on Zack Greinke

2009-05-06T05:20:00.003-04:00

Minda at Royals Authority:

And...I can't even believe what a big number I'm about to type here...remember that MLB average is 100, and last year's Cy Young winners Cliff Lee and Tim Lincecum had ERA+ of 175 and 167, respectively.

OK, are you ready? Zack Greinke's ERA+ is 1173. Yeah, four digits. One thousand, one hundred seventy-three.

Rany:

Greinke has four starts in his career with 10 strikeouts and no walks. Every other pitcher to suit up for the Royals in their history has combined for four such starts: one by Gordon, one by Gubicza, one by Johnson, and one by Rich Gale.

Sam Mellinger, KC Star:

It’s an hour or so before Zack Greinke’s first pitch, and Billy Butler is talking to a teammate.
“I’m guaranteeing a shutout tonight,” Butler says. “What do you think?”

Joe Posnanski:

This from brilliant reader Rob: Dating back to last year, Greinke has won nine consecutive starts, and in those nine starts he has an 0.69 ERA. How good is that? Well, legendary. There have been 50 pitches since 1954 who have won nine or more consecutive starts. Greinke’s is the second-best.*
*The best of those by ERA?

1. Bob Gibson, 1968: 12-0, 0.50 ERA.
Note for posterity: Gibson completed all 12 of those games.

2. Zack Greinke, 2008-09: 9-0, 0.69 ERA

POSTSCRIPT: From Posnanski, a trip down memory lane to 2003.

An absolutely tremendous win

2009-05-06T00:43:00.006-04:00

Down four runs two different times, then down 7-4 with three to play... and a win in 11.

Ozzie Guillen's still staring, blankly, into the long abyss.

Lots of Royals commentators have been saying the game vs. the Twins a few days back, which the Royals also won in 11, was one the team had no business winning, in fact would not have won last year, three years ago, 10 years ago.... I put tonight's contest in the same category. Consider:

The team drew 11 walks, with Coco Crisp walking on four straight plate appearances, often after being down 1-2 in the count.
The team's crucial sixth run was scored after consecutive walks, both on 3-2 counts (credit Crisp with that RBI... I should mention here that he is, officially, now my favorite player; after he stole second base in the 8th, I could've sworn he was going to score the go-ahead run).
Talk about picking up your starter: Kyle Davies gave up six runs in four innings; the bullpen went seven while allowing just one (how 'bout Jamie Wright's three scoreless? That's a good night's work. On a related note: is Joakim Soria still okay?)
And talk about picking up your starter (which is exactly what these players have talked about recently, actually): John Buck, hitless in his five previous at-bats, singles in the walk-off run with two outs after Mike Jacobs failed to get it done.

The list goes on, but in conclusion, this was, from start to finish, one of the most remarkable wins of the season. In the early-going, this was the sort of game you wouldn't have minded losing, insofar as that's ever possible. You fall behind 4-0 and 7-4 and wonder whether you shouldn't just be happy to leave still in first place. But the Royals battled and scrapped -- not to use this most anathema of words, but the Royals really scrapped -- and, sometime around the middle innings, you somehow felt something would change. That the White Sox, obviously inferior, would break. And then it occurs to you: these Royals are different from all the others you've known and followed and loathed. These guys are actually good.

If this team -- the 2009 Royals -- don't revert to their old form -- in other words, if they play like they played tonight -- they will contend from here till late September. Perhaps some of you have known this for a while now (a week?). After today, I see it -- and I would have sooner if not for MLB.tv's frustratingly inconsistent streaming. I believe. And I don't mean it like we all meant it in 2003, with that silly catchphrase -- this time I believe with reason.

POSTSCRIPT: Want to know what separates a good Major League hitter from a decent one who somehow rakes in the minors but can never seem to break through? This was actually something one of the Royals broadcasters said, but it was illustrated in tonight's game: the ability to take a strike, i.e. the confidence to hit while down in the count. Major Leaguers can put the same kind of swing on a 1-2 fastball as a 2-1. The moment that brought this to light for me was Mitch Maier's at-bat in the 8th, with Crisp on third, Mark Teahen on first and two out. The pitcher, Scott Linebrink, had walked Crisp earlier and obviously wasn't exhibiting great control. The first pitch was a ball. And then Maier, perhaps feeling he needed to justify himself because the White Sox had elected to intentionally walk Teahen, swung on the 1-0 count and flied out, ending the rally. It was exactly the sort of at-bat his teammates weren't taking all night and the sort the Royals resorted to all the time before this year.

Not saying Maier doesn't belong -- I like him as much as the next guy. Maybe just that there's a reason it took him so long to make it to the big-league team.

Stop it

2009-05-05T02:01:00.003-04:00

Zack Greinke. Recap.

They are afraid, oh yes they are.

POSTSCRIPT: This makes me like Ozzie Guillen more (above link): "I always loved this kid. I always thought he had great stuff and I always thought it was a shame he wasn't winning that many games."

You give a little, you get a little

2009-05-01T02:39:00.004-04:00

Royals turn AL record-tying six DPs

And now alone in first place.

The long-awaited SI cover

2009-04-29T10:20:00.004-04:00

“So it’s a mistake. They’ll probably sell their least amount of magazines in a long time — except when NASCAR was on the cover.”

--Zack Greinke, as quoted in KC Star

--Zack Greinke, as on Sports Illustrated cover

Joe Posnanski: more.

By the way, that story relegated a Gary Smith feature to a small cover line. That's when you know -- as a writer -- that you've arrived.

POSTSCRIPT: They finally unblocked Rany's blog in China! YouTube, on the other hand...

SI's Peter King writing about the Royals and Kansas City

2009-04-27T10:50:00.002-04:00

Our ~~small~~ medium town's in MMQB! His non-football thoughts of the week:

a. I am so ticked off I missed Zack Grienke Friday night. What a great story -- he threw a three-hitter to beat Detroit (and the kid from West Orange, Rick Porcello) to go to 4-0. The story of the month in baseball, with nothing even close for second place: Grienke. In 29 innings, he's struck out 36 and given up zero earned runs.

b. And the Royals drew 36,363 to the refurbished Kauffman Stadium. Good for them.

c. Was that you, Zack, in the Classic Cup on the Plaza for breakfast Saturday morning? If so, a lot of us left you alone on purpose.

d. By the way, thanks to two Tweeters for steering me to the Classic Cup. Great pulse-of-the-Plaza breakfast spot.

Fire extinguisher, NOW!

2009-04-24T23:30:00.005-04:00

Zack Greinke:

In a game completed in two hours and six minutes in front of 36,363 fans at beautiful Kauffman Stadium.

It's during those rare instances when a pitcher's on cloud nine or wherever it is pitchers go when they realize they're absolutely, sickeningly unhittable that we pause a moment amid teeth-gnashing (over Joakim Soria, perhaps) and withdraw from our daily minutia to appreciate the finer points of life. Birds and bees -- and no, not the kind some of you want unleashed in Trey Hillman's office -- and gallivanting trolls, or something. The physics of baseball is such that these sort of performances -- lined up back to back... to back to back -- are once-in-a-blue-moon occurrences, not to missed or taken for granted, like, in music, a young diva or prodigy who can "bring tears to your eyes." So, a weekend suggestion, if we may: lean back in your favorite sofa and take a breath. Things are gonna be a-okay.

Your day's picks

2009-04-21T11:56:00.004-04:00

Three quick reads:

Via Sam Mellinger: something even the most awful of Royals teams never did.
Royales With Cheese: Wikipedia demonstrates the extent of this fan base's anger with Trey Hillman.
Joe Posnanski rants -- or gets as close to ranting as you'll see from him -- on Hillman's mismanagement of the bullpen on Sunday.

Royals at Indians, 6:05 p.m. CDT. Your starting pitcher: Sidney Ponson.

And tomorrow: Brian Bannister. Yes, Brian Bannister, riding a nine-inning shutout streak. Who cares if it was against minor leaguers... he's back!

POSTSCRIPT: This is why blogs are the future: read the comments to this Ball Star blog post, particularly the thread about ERA+.

Can we ever trust him again?

2009-04-20T04:13:00.007-04:00

At some point, Kyle Farnsworth's ERA will dip below 10.00. This I trust. The next batter he retires without allowing a run will drop his ERA from 18.90 to 17.18. One more and it's at 15.75. A couple scoreless outings after that it'll stand at 9.00. It's not impossible to imagine this scenario playing out. In fact, I'd give it eight or nine days if I were a betting man.

However, the question was, is, and will be for the foreseeable future whether we -- the fans, the manager, the man who decided to pay him upwards of $4 million this year, his teammates -- will ever trust him to do his job. Allow me to put it this way: how many scoreless innings must Farnsworth string together for our first reaction upon hearing his name to not be, "Suck on a goat's balls you gutless shiteating piss of a fraud!" or, simply, $&%#!?

This is a serious inquiry.

I ask not for myself but for an increasingly aggrieved fan base. They are angry, and they are angry. And I can only imagine no one feels the brunt of Farnsworth's failures more heavily and personally than Dayton Moore, and on this topic I can provide no words of solace. You will remember that of this offseason's acquisitions -- all those many words volleyed back and forth about Mike Jacobs (it seemed like the baseball universe was focused on that trade), all the analysis of Coco Crisp, those many jokes cracked at Horacio Ramirez and Willie Bloomquist -- the only one I did not openly defend was the Farnsworth signing, dismissing criticism against him with, "I'm willing to see how this plays out... to find the positive, hope for the best." Well, how long before we say there is no positive? Has that time already passed?

Among the victims of Farnsy's collapses -- other than the Royals' win-loss record -- has been manager Trey Hillman. His reputation would be called collateral damage in another context. Royal Report Card titles a post, "Hillman's Gotta Go..", and he doesn't mean shopping. The Royal Treatment is less subtle: "FIRE TREY HILLMAN NOW!" Ah, the things people will say when still mad as spit over a blown lead. Undying Royalty is one of the few who have kept perspective. In any case, even Sam Mellinger of the KC Star seems to be baffled by Hillman's latest string of game decisions. This is not a good sign.

I tried defending Hillman after the Opening Day debacle to a friend by saying he'll learn from his mistakes and improve. I believe I used the phrase "he's still young," which prompted my friend to reply -- rightly -- that managers are not prospects. "They're either idiots or they're not," he said. "You, my friend, have an idiot for a manager." I'm not ready to go that far -- look, it's a tough job; you're dealing with 25 different personalities, 25 needs, and you're required to find some balance, conjure some nonexistent formula that'll keep everyone happy and the "chemistry" good. Put another way, you play the hand you're dealt, and it so happens that Hillman has Farnsworth (and let's throw Ron Mahay into this discussion while we're at it) in his clubhouse, a guy he sees every day. I'm not going to call for his head. But I do think it's getting damn near time for some lesson-learning.

POSTSCRIPT: Via Royals Review, an *interesting* interview with Joakim Soria. This shows, incidentally, why I was initially slightly uncomfortable when I heard his nickname was The Mexicutioner. As long as he's okay with it though...

5-3 ain't a bad start, no it ain't

2009-04-15T06:36:00.004-04:00

“Today was that game that (general manager) Dayton Moore had in mind when he put this team together,” [John] Buck said. “If we can get to our strength, which is the back of our pen, we’re in good shape."
[KC Star]

The early-going of 2009 sure resembles '08, with Dayton Moore's bullpen locking down games for a methodical and effective starting corps. (Here's to hoping it gets better when Luke Hochevar and Brian Bannister come back). With Meche-Greinke-Davies at the top, one has to feel good about this season.

As of yesterday:

Royals' team ERA: 2nd in AL
Strikeouts: 1st (tied)
Walks: 2nd (tied)
Earned runs: 3rd

And the money stat:

Wins: 4th (one behind the leaders)

On the subject of pitching -- specifically the bullpen -- apologies to Old Man Duggan and anyone who thinks Joakim Soria needs to be moved into the rotation, but he's the savior. Savior. God what a filthy curveball. Yes, I'm still shuddering about that 68-mph knee-buckler he threw to Jhonny Peralta on Monday on a 3-2 count. With the bases loaded. Excuse me for this: GAH-GAH-GAH-GAH-GAH.

On a still-related note, when it comes to evaluating baseball, the feeling vs. stats debate rages on, as with the question of whether to use Soria in the bullpen or rotation. On this I will only say -- as one who wouldn't mind, necessarily, seeing him get a try in the rotation -- I think anyone who takes Joe Posnanski literally and decrying him when he writes, "But it is true, as far as I know, that no statistic can measure the feeling of knowing that you have a game won in the ninth inning" (emphasis mine), needs to take a breath and ask himself why he follows sports. And I don't want anyone to accuse me of being a "traditionalist" in the Joe Morgan-type sense, but honestly, if your first reaction to words like "no statistic" and "feeling" is to denounce the writer, and if you don't think things like "confidence," which Soria inspires when he enters the game with a lead -- what Buck was getting at, what Poz was hinting at, what Royals management is counting on -- are tangible -- the difference between fairy dust and believing in fairy dust, between a sugar pill and the placebo effect -- then you've been brainwashed. You've officially crossed into that zone where baseball is no longer played by people but trading cards and dice. And, pardon me for saying so, but that's a sad state to exist in, better left for the professionals who get compensated for their enjoyment-nullifying efforts.

A strange play out of Arizona...

2009-04-13T07:38:00.002-04:00

The rarely encountered "fourth-out rule" was applied in the Dodgers-Diamondbacks game on Sunday. Video here.

POSTSCRIPT: Joe Posnanski contends Joakim Soria's value as a closer:

...The Royals scored three runs more than they scored the first two games of the Yankees series and took a 6-4 lead.
And Soria trotted in from the bullpen in the ninth. “Welcome to the Jungle” blared over the enhanced Royals sound system. Images of fire flared up on video screens all over the stadium.
And here’s the argument: The game was over.

Blogger beware

2009-04-13T00:04:00.006-04:00

It was Rany who wrote on the final day of March, "A warning to anyone out there considering starting their own blog: this is a 365-day-a-year habit. You may not be able to write every day, but the need, the compulsion, to stay on top of things is not something that you can turn off just because you happen to take a vacation."

And now it is I who echo this advice to dear Joe of the newly begun New Blue Tradition. Not knowing anything else about you -- your hobbies, your ambitions, your food of choice or style of dress -- I advise you quit now, while you're ahead. You pick up some momentum and something will grab hold of you, something sinister from "out there" in a land marked by Google signposts. You might escape from its clutches someday in a few months or years, when all the endorphins have drained away, but there will come a random day in January or February when a gal you've never met will decide, out of the midnight abyss that is our subconscious, to start a blog called "New Blue Tradition," and on an overcast day when nothing at all could go right you'll check your stat meter and find -- holy Soria! -- your blog's geting hits again, from random Google searches, and you'll scratch your head and wonder and, against all your better inclination, begin publishing again.

They reclaim, in the end, your soul.

We'd like to welcome back Royal Blues (not Minda's new Royal Blues, part of MVN, which has added two new Royals blogs to its network, The Throne Room and The Scorecard). We last heard from him on March 3, 2007, writing about a fantasy baseball draft.

Now... did anyone notice how good Tony Pena Jr. looked while scoring the tying run in the bottom of the 8th yesterday? Got his uniform dirty, then sprinted across the plate standing up. The small crowd was boisterous. Thank goodness for Phil Coke (and Joe Girardi).

I would also like to state for the record -- for the thousandth time -- that Joakim Soria is awesome. Elite. Crème de la crème. His line from yesterday:

I'm not a big fan of the word "agape," but that's the state his final curveball left me.

Gil Meche is pretty epic as well.

Whew

2009-04-10T00:26:00.006-04:00

Joakim Soria made it interesting in the 9th, but ultimately this is what matters:

I mean, it is what ultimately matters. I suppose it'd be more prudent to take my meaning as "Royals won," but you probably already knew that anyway.

Kyle Davies for Cy Young.

Game story from the excellent Bob Dutton, already in midseason form. As he notes:

The Royals closed out this first series with their three starters — Gil Meche, Zack Greinke and Davies — permitting just one run and 13 hits in 20 innings. The three also combined for 21 strikeouts and five walks.

And now the ball goes to Sidney Ponson as the Royals return to a renovated Kauffman Stadium for their home opener.

I typed that with a straight face.

POSTSCRIPT: On the Coco Crisp home run call, imagine Hawk's voice dropping a sad octave when he says "gone" and you'll understand why I found this so very amusing: "That ball is gone."

Royals-White Sox rubber game live blog

2009-04-09T14:15:00.012-04:00

1:14 p.m. CT: Hawk Harrelson just said "two hole" four times within 45 seconds. It really did sound as dirty as you think.

He also said he really likes talk radio, and -- we're less than 10 minutes in, folks -- apparently Paul Konerko is one HELL of a defensive first baseman.

Where has this been all my life?

1:19 p.m.: One more commentator note: how weird is it that Steve Stone is calling this game? He sounds like he prepared for the day -- as he prepares for every telecast with the Hawk, I can only imagine -- by shooting straight dope.

1:20 p.m. And the Royals are out of the inning because Jim Thome isn't batting against Kyle Farnsworth.

Too overused?

Don't say I said this, but Kyle Davies looks sharp. It's gonna be a good year.

1:24 p.m.: Have we figured out why Alex Gordon isn't batting between the two righties, Jose Guillen and Billy Butler? Wasn't Gordon in the five-hole his rookie year? Are we still trying to increase his confidence?

1:24 p.m.: Billy Butler beats one down the line! (Just kidding -- E-5.)

1:18 p.m.: Eh, I've decided I'm okay with Gordon at No. 6. Mike Aviles fly-out, inning over.

That's a can o' corn for Carlos.

1:32 p.m.: The first highlight of the game courtesy of David DeJesus in left field, a diving catch to rob Jermaine Dye of the game's first hit. I had no idea he caught it until I heard the disappointment oozing out of Hawk's mouth. He was bleeding disappointment. Anyway, consider this my oblique reference to the crappiness of MLB.tv's streaming. If I set the video quality any higher -- it's currently at the lowest setting -- I wouldn't get to watch.

1:35 p.m.: Yikes. Davies hung another one -- pulled foul. The next pitch got a lot of plate but Alexi Ramirez hit it off the end of the bat to center.

"That's a can o' corn," Hawk said before immediately falling silent, perhaps realizing he'd just used the exact same expression.

1:37 p.m.: If it sounds like I'm being overly critical, please don't misunderstand: I admire Hawk for being passionate -- like you and me, really -- and for disguising nothing. He and Stone were talking about the White Sox minor leaguers earlier as if they were their children (I don't mean Hawk-Stoney love child, though that's a pretty good image). He calls the players by their first names. If you ever missed a game and needed someone to fill you in, would you not want Hawk to be the guy doing it?

1:42 p.m. CT: Okay, one more inning and then I'm out. I say Willie Bloomquist homers.

(Actually, that is patently absurd.)

2:44 a.m. Beijing: And MLB.tv has stopped streaming the Royals game. Awesome.

And, wouldn't you know, Willie Bloomquist... struck out.

A good night and a good day to everyone.

Nick Adenhart

2009-04-09T13:18:00.004-04:00

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart was among three people killed in a crash in Fullerton, California, early Thursday, according to the team and a hospital spokesman.

Adenhart, 22, from Silver Spring, Maryland, died at UC Irvine Medical Center, according to spokesman John Murray.

Joe Posnanski on the marriage between Kansas City and Royals baseball

2009-04-08T05:14:00.003-04:00

Your read of the day:

The Royals represented so much of what Kansas City wanted to believe about itself. They were a family. They were creative. They were tough. And they were part of the community … you could go out to the Plaza after a game, and there would be star third baseman George Brett or big first baseman John Mayberry or pitcher Dennis Leonard. You could buy a player a drink, and he would probably walk over and talk about the game. Frank White, who grew up in Kansas City and worked on the construction crew that built the new Royals Stadium (now the even newer Kauffman Stadium), played second base like no one had ever played it before.
Willie Wilson, perhaps the fastest man to ever play major league baseball, would hit balls that skidded off the artificial turf, and he would be a wonder to watch run around the bases. Hal McRae, who believed that you played baseball to win, would slide hard to break up double plays. Relief pitcher Dan Quisenberry would throw strike after strike after strike, counting on his brilliant defense to make the great plays behind him. And more often than not, it did.
Kansas City could not get enough of that team. From 1976 to 1993, the Royals, playing in perhaps the smallest market in baseball, averaged more than 2 million fans per season.

Jim Thome, Royal killer

2009-04-08T03:33:00.003-04:00

After the hours of calisthenics and breathing exercises and incense and green tea, I've decided I'm not ready for the baseball season after all.

Especially post-game quotes like this:

“I got behind him 2-0,” [Kyle] Farnsworth said, “and I tried to come back on him with fastballs. That one was up a little bit. That’s why you try to get ahead of him. You fall behind good hitters like that, they’ll make you pay.”

Excuse us while we scream a string of curses.

...

This will go on for a while, so go ahead and continue what you were doing...

...

MLB.tv FAIL

2009-04-07T09:00:00.003-04:00

This MLB.com is titled, "MLB.TV, season off to flying starts." Excerpts:

We can all agree that this was worth the wait, as always, and what is making it even more fun this time is being able to watch it live in crystal-clear, staggeringly spectacular HD on your computer via MLB.TV Premium.

...

We can all agree that this was worth the wait, as always, and what is making it even more fun this time is being able to watch it live in crystal-clear, staggeringly spectacular HD on your computer via MLB.TV Premium.

...

Beau Frusetta is a Red Sox fan in Phoenix and he also uses it to follow his team in a way no other broadcast capability can match. It is anywhere-baseball, loaded with interactive functionalities that are beyond your average TV set's capabilities. They just don't make those with Fantasy trackers built in or constant delivery of highlights.
"Having an HD stream available from MLB.TV this year is amazing -- some other professional sports leagues should take note," he said. "I think what most people don't realize is that you can hook your computers up to those lovely 40-inch-plus LCD HD TVs that everyone has these days and stream HD content from the internet in full screen to their TVs. For $20 a month, that's a smoking deal to be able to see all the Red Sox games that I miss during the year being in the Phoenix market. It's also a much better deal than you'd get on some other services like satellite/cable, and you can take it with you if you have a laptop -- not much better than that!"

Staggeringly spectacular!

And these are -- not kidding -- the top three user comments as of 9:02 a.m. ET:

commenter wrote:

2009 MLB.TV opening day...This is the classic result of marketing people and senior management making lofty promises about product development, and then trying to adhere to an unrealistic deadline and/or budget. Instead of building the system properly, things get done half-a**ed. And I paid $80 for this.

4/7/2009 8:52:49 AM

hannah_kali wrote:

Wow, that article was a piece of garbage. The service provided so far this season has been TERRIBLE!!! Don't subscribe. What a waste of money. We've been waiting 8 hours for archive footage that was promised in 45 minutes. No response from MLBtv support staff. They have a long way to go to make it up to current customers. Unbelieveable that they'd publish an article like this...

4/7/2009 8:39:27 AM

commenter wrote:

I'm sorry to say this, but the 2009 season got off to a tremendous failure for MLB.TV. In its current state, MLB.TV is almost completely unviewable when using the NextDef plug in, which is the prerequiste for using the premium services. I can understand a few wrinkles early in the season, but not a complete collapse of the servers, leading to out of sync audio, stuttering and/or frozen pictures, even at the lowest quality levels. If this turns out to be a browser or operating system problem, then the technical staff and the programmers will really have egg on thier faces. I say this as a programmer for a major European production house, which streams European football in high quality, besides doing the television production.

4/7/2009 8:31:49 AM

I took a screen grab because I wonder, after the execs at MLB.com find out, how long they'll keep the comments section open.

POSTSCRIPT: Fail blog -- it's been pretty incredible this past week.

The cruelest letters

2009-04-06T10:43:00.006-04:00

An all-around sports guy and friend of mine recently said the cruelest series of letters on Opening Day is PPD, and I couldn't agree more. Witness:

Some rainy-day reading, then:

Sports Illustrated's preview: Tom Verducci:

The Reds and Rangers have been down too long in the democracy of the modern game. They are among only seven franchises that have not reached the postseason this decade. Toronto, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Baltimore and Washington/Montreal have somehow also missed the crowded party. The Yankees are guaranteed to have the most wins of the decade (they have a 37-win lead over Boston), but the Red Sox have the most world championships (two, with seven other franchises tied with one). Keep in mind, too, that in this decade alone teams have busted championship droughts of 10, 24, 28, 41, 86 and 88 years -- awakenings that must warm the hearts of Indians fans on the chilly shores of Lake Erie.
Joe Posnanski writing in the Kansas City Star:

Well, this year — for the first time in a dozen years or so — I have not written the “Royals will win” column. Many people have written in and wondered about that. Have I finally lost hope? Have I allowed the naysayers to break me? Have I given up on this silly gimmick?
No. It’s something else this year.
I think the Royals really and truly might win the American League Central this year.
Joe Posnanski writing in SI.
The KC Star Royals preview section.
Royals Review: optimism and anxiety (seems like the perfect words)
Continuing with the optimism angle... Royals Authority
Even Rany... (seriously)
New Royals blog: Royal Report Card (I'm sure there are others I'm missing...)
Nods to Sully Baseball, aka Paul Sullivan of HBO Sports, who compiled this about the Royals (if you're into reminiscing), and George Blowfish.

The legend of Ichiro

2009-03-29T00:50:00.003-04:00

PRELUDE: YouTube was blocked in China these last few days, otherwise I would've gotten this up sooner.

Recently I've had a chance to re-watch the critical moments of the WBC final between Korea and Japan, and I have to say: like watching soccer on Univision, watching a Japanese broadcast of baseball really adds to the experience, even if you don't know what anyone's saying. Although you could probably guess, after the camera pans out from its besotted slow sweep of Ichiro's face, that the guys in the booth are screaming something to the effect of, "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!"

The seven-and-a-half-minute version of that video is here.

With Ichiro standing on first, a color commentator on a Chinese (probably Taiwan) broadcast said, "Hero. Really nothing else to say. Hero," while the play-by-play man raced over his words to describe what just happened.

And this is the bottom of the 9th, in Chinese:

Finally, the American version (the highlights, anyway).

In the full spirit of spring

2009-03-27T01:03:00.003-04:00

Lee Hoffer, writing in the latest issue of Sports Illustrated, about the Astros and their 19-game spring training winless streak:

They will probably win more than 6% of their games—that would be 10—come the regular season, we'll give him that. But this stretch of sustained failure does give pause. It challenges the whole idea of spring training as just seven weeks of enforced camaraderie, a competition-free zone, no consequences whatsoever. It's just not likely, not from what we know of sports, that a team can lose that many games in a row and have it simply not matter.

...

Ourselves, we're kind of hoping the Astros do go on to the World Series, if only to satisfy the fantasy that somewhere (either in Arizona or Florida, of course) and sometime (just early spring) there are grown men playing baseball just for the fun of it, without penalty or sanction. It's a pleasant idea, isn't it? The games will count way too much, soon enough.

Still, we'd like to point out the Royals are third from the top among American League teams.

World Baseball Classic final: awesome

2009-03-24T04:08:00.005-04:00

LOS ANGELES -- If you could hear yourself think at Dodger Stadium Monday -- and such an ordinary task became a downright challenge amid the 54,846 flag-waving, drum-beating, thunderstick-whacking, whistle-blowing, aisle-dancing zealots as Japan battled Korea in a final straight out of 1960s Americana -- what you understood was that the World Baseball Classic grew bigger and better in its second incarnation. An acquired taste for smug Americans, the party goes on in 2013 whether America wants to resist it or not, not unlike the soccer World Cup.

--Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated

On one side you have the naysayers, including many Major League Baseball general managers and inane national columnists like Gene Wojciechowski who have mastered the art of thinking small.

On the other you have the people who know and like baseball, including the actual participants.

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's read this blog whose side I'm on. My two cents:

Why is there even a debate?

The term "provincialist" has been used as a popular put-down for non-supporters, but I don't think we need to resort to name-calling. I've implied it before but I'll make it clear now: for Americans who can't see or understand the allure of the WBC and its impact on international baseball -- not to be confused with "international tournaments"; I'm talking about professional baseball leagues in Japan, Korea, Cuba, etc., and baseball fans in countries around the world -- I say, Too bad.

It's too bad you didn't think it worth your time to watch baseball players slide so hard into second they'd crack their helmets in the front and the back.

It's too bad you don't like rivalries, especially ones seeped so deep in world history it'd be fair to call last night's game one of those "transcendent" sporting events.

It's too bad you don't like watching ninth-inning rallies, and stars shine at just the right moments, and managers second-guessed, and celebrations worthy of a parade.

It's just too bad.

I don't need to rehash the arguments for the WBC, such as how injuries can happen in spring training, players can use preparation for the WBC as an excuse to not be lazy in January, etc., nor do I want to copy and paste large portions of Verducci's column about the WBC's impact in other countries (please just read it; I will say he mentioned the Royals: "The interest was not confined to the Pacific Rim. The 39 WBC games drew an average of 20,549 fans per game -- making the WBC, on average, a better draw than three major league franchises: the Royals, Pirates and Marlins. The WBC drew seven crowds in excess of 40,000 -- more than the Marlins, Nationals, Royals, Indians, White Sox and Athletics combined in 486 games last year").

I'll just leave it at this: watch this video and tell me you wouldn't have wanted to be in L.A., or whether there was a time Jon Miller and Joe Morgan ever sounded so good.

As for last words, ESPN's Eric Neel can have them:

I didn't see a game so much as a happening, an event in which every moment, from the plays made in the field to the explosive cheers in the stands, felt charged with intense desire and fierce competition.
I hope you saw it too. I hope, like me, what you saw made you think the lingering questions about whether the WBC is here to say seem silly. I hope, like me, what you saw made your worrying and wondering about what happened to Team USA and about why they have failed to win this tournament twice now seem entirely beside the point.
I hope you saw Japan 5, Korea 3 for what it was: A great night of baseball, a great night for baseball.

A quick question

2009-03-22T10:31:00.002-04:00

So, we understand the excitement around the semifinals and finals of the World Baseball Classic -- by the way, congratulations to Korea for advancing -- and that for fans of non-American teams this tournament is providing an outlet for expressing national pride, but on a scale of 1 to 10, if you were sitting in this section in the video below between all the thunderstix and had to listen to air horns go off next to your ear for three-plus hours, how annoyed would you be?

Again -- congratulations to South Korea for advancing to the WBC finals.

Sidney Ponson is just the piece the Royals need...

2009-03-21T03:34:00.003-04:00

...To attract Jerry Crasnick's attention, writing in ESPN:

SURPRISE, Ariz. -- On the heels of the Bruce Chen signing, Tug Hulett's demotion to Triple-A Omaha and the birth of Jose Guillen's son Derek, the Kansas City Royals mixed in another intriguing transaction this week. They picked up Sidney Ponson, World Baseball Classic stalwart, nemesis of Aruban judges and a guy who was released by Texas last June for conduct unbecoming a teammate.

About the importance of a strong bullpen, this is more or less right on:

Both the front office and manager Trey Hillman also subscribe to the notion that nothing crushes a team's spirit more than blown leads in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings.
"I just read a comment by [Diamondbacks manager] Bob Melvin last week and I agree with it wholeheartedly," Hillman said. "He talked about how terrible you feel when you lose a game out of the bullpen. When you have a lead and end up losing the game, it cuts twice."

A recommended read. You won't find a longer article in a national publication/website about the Kansas City Royals bullpen.

Oh. My. God

2009-03-11T13:42:00.004-04:00

"I'm not going to ask [fans] to be happy, because I know how it feels. And I'm a winner, but I don't like to go home losing. And I lost today. Only God knows -- only God knows why we lost."

--Pedro Martinez, after the Netherlands eliminated the
Dominican Republic from the World Baseball Classic

Maybe the Dominican Major Leaguers and its manager should've gone easier on those "we're way better than them" quotes after their first loss to the Dutch, eh?

Netherlands 2, D.R. 1, 11 inn.

ESPN's Jorge Arangue Jr.:

Late in the game, after each successive inning in which the impossible really did happen, Netherlands first baseman Randall Simon paced around the area near his position and pleaded with his dead mother for a miracle. Simon's team had fought the powerful Dominican Republic team to a draw in Tuesday's elimination game, making it the night of the improbable, so who was to say she would not listen?
"If you're here with me," Simon said to her, "talk to the Lord, because these guys really deserve it."

SI's Tom Verducci:

Major League Baseball can work all of its machinations to pump up interest in the tournament, such as marketing and broadcasting. But there is nothing more powerful to sell the tournament than the unscripted magnificence of the game itself, never more so than when what we regard as the meek overtake the mighty. The Dominicans, because of the country's abiding love for baseball, will bear grief and shame for the defeat.

But for the Dutch, and for those who saw the WBC as a means to grow the game, victory is eternal. Van Gogh. Escher. DeKooning. And now make way for a new Dutch master: DeCaster.

Your video:

POSTSCRIPT: From the above-linked Verducci article, a blurb too good to not post here:

Venezuelan fans match their passion with inventiveness. At-bats by Chavez were occasions to announce their disapproval of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez: "Endy, si! Chavez, no!"
And speaking of heads of state, Fidel Castro is blogging on the WBC. No, really. The Cuban president, writing under Reflections by Comrade Fidel, apparently is down with sabermetric principals that regard giving up an out with a sacrifice bunt as poor strategy. He took Japan to task for bunting in the eighth inning of a one-run game against Korea. ("an error whichever elemental way it is analyzed"). He also rapped his own team for "carelessness" on the basepaths (in a blowout win over South Africa, no less), lamented not winning the game by the mercy rule, and wrote he wants Cuba to beat Japan in the finals. Harsh stuff. Does the guy think he's some dictator, or what?

World Baseball Classic

2009-03-09T01:49:00.003-04:00

I just want to point out how absolutely ecstatic the Japanese fans in the sold-out Tokyo Dome are at seeing Ichiro hit singles.

Lest you need another reminder, they love him there.

God I miss this.

Meanwhile, in China, no one noticed the national team bowed out of the tournament with a pretty bad loss to South Korea. It's not the Olympics any more...

But, hey, at least they beat Chinese Taipei (again).

Well

2009-01-24T18:15:00.004-05:00

Things do move fast in the Royals blogosphere -- FanFest, funny mailbag (actually funny), 20 new posts from Hapless Royals (God I wish I'd read this six days ago), all in one week. Oh, and Barack Obama's inauguration... which I viewed in China.

Yes, once again I'm far removed from baseball and all other Americana -- unless you count McDonald's, Starbucks, KFC, iPods on subways, a shitload of cars, basketball, golf, commercialism, pretty faces on big billboards, high-rises, VIP lounges and a few other things -- so this is your obligatory apology post. I won't drift too far, but I can't afford to keep IDWT numero uno on my blog depth chart either (the complete list is in my blogger profile).

A departing note: I'm gonna be keeping an eye on this pending blog war between Royals Review -- which is, let's face it, Britain circa 18th to mid-20th century -- and Hapless, which kind of reminds me of India. Or maybe a better metaphor -- if war metaphors for ~~sports~~ blogs could ever be acceptable -- would be that of civil war. The United States emerged from its civil war a stronger union, eventually (though I'm not convinced we wouldn't have two separate but stronger unions had the South won). Will Royals fans?

We won't know until we get full-blown conflict. Where's the potential Saraevjo? Where's Fort Sumter? Get it at!

A thunderous new Royals blog

2009-01-17T13:29:00.005-05:00

I'm not a literary critic and was never very good in my lit theory classes, but as I understand it, "intentional fallacy" is the bedrock of New Criticism, which more or less was the vogue of mid- to late-20th century literary criticism. I won't bore you with specifics, but it basically means we should evaluate art (or whatever) for the meaning it inspires, as opposed to the meaning the author intended. So, for instance, out goes the significance of Milton declaring within the first 26 lines of Paradise Lost, "I thence / Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song, / That with no middle flight intends to soar / Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues / Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme," or Beethoven dedicating his third symphony to the "great man" Napoleon (before crossing out his name). Ambition is out of the question.

So, too, would this fine introduction from our latest Royals blog, Hapless Royals, be shrugged off, or at least analyzed outside of (the yet-nonexistent) context:

Welcome to my new blog. Be warned. I will cuss in just about every sentence. If this offends you, go the fuck away.

This blog will be about the Kansas City Royals, their fans, stupid bloggers, idiot fans, shit I read on other website geared toward the Royals, and whatever crap I feel like posting.

I'll try to post once or twice a week. And I'll start tomorrow off with something I'd like to call: "The internet is ruining the enjoyment of Baseball."

So be it. These are the times we live in. It doesn't matter the bar you set: just whether your jump makes the audience ooh and aah.

POSTSCRIPT: Mike Sweeney was at the Royals Awards Dinner yesterday and received the Mr. Baseball Award, the night's highest honor. He received a standing ovation and choked up in his acceptance speech. Read about it here.

Some links for the day

2009-01-16T02:33:00.004-05:00

Here we go!

I wonder if Joe Posnanski's "columns" on SI.com draw as many unique voters as those same columns he posts on his own website. Just a thought. Unrelated:

I have received many emails from Royals fans and national baseball fans who are beginning to have serious questions about Royals general manager Dayton Moore. Well, I think, in many ways that matter, Dayton has done, and is doing, a terrific job. There is so much that he has done below the surface. I think the Royals organization is much stronger. I think their minor league system is getting stronger and better run. I think they are much, much more competitive in Latin America. I believe the Royals will improve their record this year for the fourth straight year.
Royals Authority: What is a reasonable timeframe for Dayton Moore?
Lee Warren on the Royals Caravan in Omaha (he's got a bunch of videos up as well).
Congratulations to Rickey Henderson. Now The Onion's "Controversial Hall of Fame Selections":

Robin Yount: Although the three-time all-star had a solid 20-year career with the Brewers, he never would have made it on the first ballot if his 385 cousins weren't voters.

As a final note, this top thread on Chiefs Planet -- Rickey Henderson quotes -- has to be the most plagiarized piece of work in sports, as no one seems to know who deserves the credit for compiling the quotes in the first place. I link it to you now in honor of Rickey and because, even though it's appeared on this site before, it really is that good.

Eye candy tastes stale

2009-01-13T18:40:00.004-05:00

These girls, as Sam Mellinger suggests in so few words, are not Kansas City's K Crew.

You know what, though? Fuck Florida. Give me wholesome values and that can-do Midwest spirit any day, or something like that.

But seriously: Florida is the worst state ever. Ever.

Gauging the fans, and FanFest

2009-01-13T10:49:00.002-05:00

Royals Review has an interesting poll on its site, "Has the mood become too negative?" What inspired it? We'll let you take a couple guesses. As of 208 votes, it was 120 yes, 88 no, which means The Royal Treatments of the world are getting the better of the Royalscentricities... barely.

The discussion thread's interesting too, highlighted by this (among other starred) comment:

cmkeller: "It’s easy to criticize, but let’s not forget that the win total has increased by 6 or so every year since GMDM took over. How much does he need to do to get cut a little slack around here? I’m not saying that I think Kyle Farnsworth is worth almost $5MM per year (I’d love to know who GMDM thought he was bidding against for his services), but I do think the Royals will do better next year than they did last year, and the doom-and-gloomers need to keep a broader perspective."

It's also inspired this 667-word post from Sweep_the_Leg.

C'mon people, in this worsening economic climate, don't you have some resumes to build? (I'm just kidding.)

And with that, we happily transition to...

Royals FanFest!!!!!

January 17-18 at the Overland Park Convention Center, "the second annual event, which will be expanded for 2009 and feature 25,000 square feet of additional space" blah blah etc. etc., read about it here.

Royals sign Willie Bloomquist

2009-01-10T02:40:00.006-05:00

Yep, two-year deal worth approximately $3 million for the man also known as Princess Willie (pictured, via USS Mariner) and Willie Boom-Boom.

No, seriously:

On the flip side, he's disdained by a very active Mariner blogging community, which pokes fun at Bloomquist because of his lack of power and overall offensive production. Among his nicknames: "Ballgame," "The Ignitor," "Princess Willie" and "Willie Boom-Boom."

Sports on a Schtick also gives you Willie Bloomquist, Dragon Rider. This can be a great game: Willie Bloomquist, Low Rider; Willie Bloomquist, Whale Rider; Willie Bloomquist, Pony Express Rider.

Eh...

I'm sorry, I really got nothing. Royals Review's got you covered though.

Play us out, Willie Alexander.

A new Royals blog, sort of, and Royals awards

2009-01-08T15:31:00.003-05:00

Minda's star continues to rise as her site moves over to Royals Authority alongside the consistently good Clark Fosler and Craig Brown. The site's also now called Royal Blues, which is almost a pun. Well, it is a pun, but knowing how much Minda loves the Royals, I'm sure it's unintentional. Her first post is here.

One other announcement, via the PR arm of MLB.com:

But there will be other awards for the dinner at 6 p.m. CT on Friday, Jan. 16, at the Sheraton Overland Park Hotel in Overland Park, Kan. Tickets, $75 each or $750 for a table of 10, are available online at Royals.com or by calling 816-504-4040.

Couple things: the Royals.com link actually links to www.royals.com, even though the article is hosted on the very same site and a direct link to the ticket-buying page is posted in the article's sub-head.

Second: if you're bringing a table of 10, shouldn't you get a discount? I mean, really, wouldn't that encourage people to fill these tables?

I dunno. Maybe it's just me.

But congrats to all the Royals receiving awards. An impressive list, really.

It's a new year in this wacky, wonderful world of ours

2009-01-07T16:56:00.003-05:00

There is only one reason I read through fan chats.

I'm not exactly sure what that reason is, but this somewhat approximates it:

doxadad: Has Sluggerrr ever let you operate the "Hot Dog" gun?
(Mark) Teahen: No, Sluggerrr is very protective of his toys.

It straddles the line between the zany and the banal, the innocent and the inappropriate. There is no neat way of describing that exchange -- indeed, no neat way to characterize even how we should feel about it -- and that sort of reflects our shifting world in these uncertain times: confusing, surreal, ponderous. That's what I like about it.

Also, Teahen would like you to know he has a fashion show "this Friday to benefit Challenger Sports, helping children with special needs. It will be the chance of the winter to see a few Royals players. There are still tickets available on www.challengeyourfashion.com. The event starts at 6 p.m. [CT] on Jan. 9 at the Kansas City Convention Center."

Now, check out this video [HT: Minda].

POSTSCRIPT: The market for hitters has apparently bottomed out after Mark Teixeira's signing. With Adam Dunn possibly getting as little as $10 million a year and no one wanting to touch Scott Boras's demands for Manny Ramirez, somehow we like Jose Guillen a little bit less right now.

Talking pennant

2008-12-30T00:40:00.004-05:00

Beyond the Box Score: "It’s not altogether unreasonable that the Royals could contend for the division in 2009."

Link via Royals Review.

Of course, anything's possible, especially in December. The odds say it's about time the Royals had a great season, had players hitting the 90th percentile in all the projections, watched as other teams faltered for one reason (old: White Sox) or another (they're due for a bad year: Twins).

Think of it this way: ask anyone before 2003 whether they thought the team could contend for .500, and what would they have said?

Anyway... yes, it's possible. Throw up some pixie dust and let's see what happens.

Do Americans really not care about the World Baseball Classic?

2008-12-27T05:09:00.003-05:00

Some schmo from Fox Sports writes, "[American ballplayers] don't want to interrupt their spring training. And what makes it easy for them is that the American fans don't care."

Oh really? You have evidence for that? American baseball fans don't care, or American fans of bowling? I'll give you the latter, but surely you've researched this issue, right? Conducted a couple interviews at least? Asked a son, spouse, neighbor... someone?

Oh... it appears not.

In fact, it appears you attempted to support your claim by doing absolutely nothing except reiterating your claim, thus making it completely groundless and, because you wrote about 600 words around the claim, a complete and utter waste of time.

Also, you wrote, "Face it, the American failure in the initial WBC didn't cause any angst among fans." But why should it have caused angst? So many MLB players are spread over so many countries that it's easy to root for, say, Venezuela. What, are you expecting an international rivalry? Okay. But you think Dice-K Matsuzaka would ever brush back Kevin Youkilis?

Also, if it's a rivalry you want, I suggest you petition MLB to invite the teams from China and Chinese Taipei to the tournament. Trust me.

Also, the WBC is a very nice event, and while one can't quite laud it as "awesome" just yet, the idea's certainly in the right place, and let's remember that it's only been played once. And that one time, it was slapped together sort of last-minute. Are you really so ready to bury the idea so soon?

Also: What if Americans care less, on average, than Latin American baseball fans? Isn't that sort of true about American attitudes towards just about anything international? Americans care less about the Olympics. They care less about World Summit meetings. They care less about soccer (well, duh). This is not a new phenomenon, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing. This country's affluence enables the entertainment and sports industry to offer the public many choices as far as how to whittle away the day's long hours, and we should be grateful for that.

ALSO, "caring less" about an event doesn't mean appreciating it less. One could be indifferent about Team USA's win-loss record but still watch a few games and enjoy the heck out of them. And any sports fan should be able to appreciate the beauty of competition and a good game. In addition, there's a certain appeal to watching a tournament without a real strong rooting interest. It makes life easier, breezier, and if you think not, pop another beer, my friend, because baseball in March is supposed to be fun. Personally, I'll be saving my angst for college basketball teams ruining my bracket.

POSTSCRIPT: It's not like Team U.S.A.'s looking bad: Chipper Jones and David Wright, Derek Jeter, Dustin Pedroia, Youkilis, Grady Sizemore, ace John Lackey -- they're all in. Instead of listing a bunch of guys who "turned down" the chance to play, as the Fox Sports columnist does, why not look at them as guys who failed to make the cut. As we know, baseball players need daily reps, and if you know you'll be spending two weeks in a platoon situation, maybe it is better to just stick with your spring training routine, save everyone the fuss. The U.S. has a competitive roster though, and it's going to be a fun tournament.

In the spirit of the holidays

2008-12-26T15:25:00.001-05:00

Link-a-day through the weekend, starting with Joe Posnanski: Buying an umbrella in New York.

It's Christmas!

2008-12-25T13:49:00.001-05:00

Your non-baseball entertainment for the day:

Click for enlargement.

The Yankees sign Mark Teixeira

2008-12-24T00:53:00.004-05:00

The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

--W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming"

Despite inking Teixeira to an eight-year, $180 million deal, the Yanks actually slashed payroll for next year. How crazy/shrewd is that?

But we're not worried. Like the ultimate destiny of mankind in Yates's poem, we think the Yankees' demise is written in the sands of time. Though their pitching staff is formidable...

C.C. Sabathia
Chien-Ming Wang
A.J. Burnett
Phil Hughes
Ian Kennedy/Joba Chamberlain
Andy Pettitte?

The rest... eh. Bring it on.

OF Liability
OF Old liability
OF Swisher
3b Over-the-humper
SS Geezer
2b Who cares
1b Teixeira
C AARP card holder

Let's go Rays!

Nothing is going on

2008-12-18T20:16:00.002-05:00

Except for a few players getting signed to minor-league deals, so now's a good time to link to Joe Posnanski, who always has something to say. This time in Sports Illustrated, a scene piece about the Winter Meetings. Excerpt:

And it has all grown so complicated, so distant, so jittery. Most executives seem afraid to make a bad trade, afraid to face the instant wrath of the newspapers and talk-radio hosts and bloggers. There are no pigeons left in baseball. It's safer to stay indoors.

"You know what Pat Gillick told me?" said Allard Baird, the onetime Royals G.M. and now an assistant to Theo Epstein in Boston. "I asked him why he got out [in November], after he won the championship in Philadelphia. He said, 'Allard, nobody trades anymore. And that was the whole fun of it.'"

SI hardly runs these sort of features anymore -- old-fashioned first-person literary journalism -- so it's a breath of fresh air to read something like this. From a Kansas City guy, too.

Dayton Moore makes an appearance in the story:

What's amazing about Art is how excited he is, even late at night, even after all these years. He pulls out his legal pad and scribbles names and numbers and gossip and lies. He talks the way baseball people talked in the old days; there's urgency in his voice. For everyone else, every sentence is conditional, every offer a trial balloon, every overture merely a conversation starter. Just as Veeck and Thrift were, Art Stewart is a man of action.

"Hello, Dayton," Indians G.M. Mark Shapiro says the next morning when he phones his Royals counterpart, Dayton Moore. "I hear you need to talk to me."

"Well, I'm always happy to talk to you, Mark," says Moore, who wasn't expecting the call.

"No, I thought it was urgent," Shapiro says. "I was told you needed to talk with me immediately."

Moore smiles and shakes his head. "Let me guess," he says. "You were talking to Art."

Be sure to read till the end.

Jairo Cuevas, will you never stop toying with us

2008-12-13T03:26:00.003-05:00

Four Royals were non-tendered as of last night, meaning they can sign with any team. They are:

Joey Gathright
Jason Smith
John Bale
and
Jairo Cuevas

Cuevas, who in the span of a month has gone from the Braves to the Royals back to the Braves and again the Royals, may soon be gone again... to the Braves?

Your move, Frank Wren.

The Hunting of the Snark

2008-12-12T02:10:00.007-05:00

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.

--Lewis Carroll, "The Hunting of the Snark"

After crossing the sea guided by the Bellman's map of the Ocean — a blank sheet of paper — the hunting party arrive in a strange land. The Baker recalls that his uncle once warned him that, though catching Snarks was all well and good, you must be careful; for, if your Snark is a Boojum, then "you will softly and suddenly vanish away, and never be met with again."

--Wikepedia

The snark of the poem is an imaginary creature not to be confused with the word snarky, an adjective meaning "sharply critical, cutting, snide." There is a lot of snarkiness (which is not a word) when it comes to reacting to news out of baseball's Winter Meetings, and not just as it relates to the Royals. This is nationwide, as passionate fans everyone who find they're overcome -- overcome, we say! -- with shock and horror at their favorite team's dealings resort to, well, snark.

Of course, this being a Royals blog, we'd like to report some of the snarkier things that were said about Kyle Farnsworth and Dayton Moore:

Royals Review commenter:
Admit it: Our savior DM is Allard Baird with more money to spend

I always thought that if Allard was given a $75 million payroll, he’d put a Michael Tucker at every position and a Scott Elarton at every spot in the rotation.

Royals Authority commenter:
Kyle "There she goes" Farnsworth isn't any more use to us than Hubert J. Farnsworth.

Kansas City Star commenter:
Yes, package a bunch of middling tards for someone else's starting middle infielder! I've got it! Why don't we just send Teahen, Gobble, Pena Jr, Gload, Jason Smith, Gathright, and Peralta to the Rangers for Ian Kinsler? C'mon people...you can't package a whole gaggle of AAAA ballplayers for a stud it doesn't work like that...There isn't ONE GUY amongst that group that most teams would want. The only one close is Teahen and Dayton hasn't been able to unload him and that is WITHOUT the pieces of crapola attached.

Sigh.

People -- it's December! Let's try not to get so worked up...

It's too late for me, though... I'm gonna rant.

I find it amazing that a decade and a half of following the Royals has ingrained in some fans the conditioned response of, "This can't be good" whenever the team does something. Whatever happened to finding joy in the small acts of doing -- that is the secret of happiness, you know -- of preparing to make a decision (and we know this Royals front office puts in the necessary prep work) and then carrying it out to the best of reality's conditions? There are those who harped for years, "The Royals don't spend money, they can't win!" who now, as the Royals are spending money, have changed their line to, "The Royals don't spend money the way I want them to, they can't win!" as if baseball were a farmers' market where you get all the fresh pickings to yourself, without 29 other shoppers -- some wearing more expensive suits -- elbowing you towards the outskirts and some hundred-thousand other solicitors, observers ("Oh, I'm just looking") and mendicants who beg, curse, rant and rave, and tirelessly throw out petitions for "Adam Dunn! Aaaaaaaadam Dunnnnnnnn!"

Here's what it comes down to: you have no idea. You don't know that Kyle Farnsworth will be less productive than Ramon Ramirez, and in fact you just may get shouted down by a commenter, "I appreciate all the insight as to why this is a bad deal but why must we always be so negative about GMDM moves. HE KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING." You can critique the hell out of the front office and sound more-than-reasonable doing so, but in the end you just might get told off by Anonymous: "The question really is what would you have done instead?"

Not "would"... what could you have done, do you think?

We've been apprising Dayton Moore for a long time now, searching for reasons he's not the perfect GM, but instead of -- with your blank piece of paper as a map -- trying to find the mythical perfect general manager, why not try to examine Moore's body of work in context? He inherited a farm system in shambles and a clubhouse culture defined by losing -- horrific, outlandish, rage-inducing losing. Now? Tell me you're not excited to see this team take the field on Opening Day. In fact, tell me you're not excited to hear news from the next day, to see what else GMDM may have pulled.

Look, I'm not a big fan of Farnsworth, if truth must be told, but I'm willing to see how this plays out. I'm willing to give it a chance, to find the positive, hope for the best. You know -- wait to see what happens in April and May. Not shoot this down in December.

Oh, and whatever happened to those snark hunters? Disappeared, that's what. (One of them, anyway.) Take a lesson from that.

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away --
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

POSTSCRIPT: the Royals have acquired promising outfielder Jordan Parraz, a two-time Class-A Most Valuable Player, from the Astros. He was that "player to be named later" in the Nov. 24 deal for Tyler Lumsden.

J.J. Putz, on the other hand, will descend upon your soul

2008-12-11T12:52:00.001-05:00

And save it, save it good.

Congratulations to the Mets for acquiring J.J. Putz and suddenly shoring up that bullpen we said yesterday "hardly inspires confidence." It damn sure does now.

As for the Royals, they've been active, signing LHP Horacio Ramirez, whose last stint in KC went rather well before he imploded on another team, and claiming another pitcher from the Braves, RHP Jairo Cuevas. If you're wondering, yes, that is the same Jairo Cuevas who was claimed last month off the same team, then claimed back. The arms race is escalating.

But this is all small beer when it comes to the news out of Vegas this morning: no, not C.C. Sabathia; the Royals and Kyle Farnsworth have agreed to a two-year, $9.25 million deal, pending a physical. Farnsworth is a very hard-throwing righty who'll fit perfectly into the primary setup role. The price tag sort of jumps out at you though, leaving you wondering what's left in the coffers to sign Juan Cruz or Rafael Furcal. Last we checked, Dayton Moore was asking the man upstairs for more cash. We too will pray.

Francisco Rodriguez will not save you

2008-12-10T01:34:00.005-05:00

By all means, Francisco Rodriguez probably earned his three-year, $37 million contract, both on the merit of his body of work and the numbers he posted last season -- despite the fact that, if you ignore the record-breaking 62 saves, 2008 was statistically one of the worst seasons in his career. But he won't be the Mets' savior. In fact, he won't be anything if his maximum-effort style finally reaches its breaking point -- his velocity dropped measurably last season, forcing him to rely more heavily on a curveball that we can't help but think puts incredible stress on his elbow. That aside, the Mets' bullpen still hardly inspires confidence, and the team may need to fill two rotation spots if Pedro Martinez and Oliver Perez leave. It's also highly advisable that they don't start next year with Luis Castillo as their starting second baseman.

Meanwhile, in Kansas City, here's what Dayton Moore has to say about the bullpen:

"Not counting anybody out, but I like the possibility of us replacing Nunez and Ramirez with the guys we have -- a better [Yasuhiko] Yabuta in his second year, an improved Robinson Tejeda to add on to what he did, the re-emergence of a [Joel] Peralta, the help of a [Brandon] Duckworth. I like some of what we got."

In other words: what, me worry?

There's an age-old truism about responsibility -- and all that stress -- accompanying power. "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown," wrote Shakespeare. (Limp Bizkit later sang, "Heavy is the head that wears the crown" in a song that looks, judging by the lyrics, stroke-inducingly awful, which makes me shake my head and marvel: The Bard and the guy who took his stage name from his dog Biscuit are of the same species?) What we're getting at is this: if and when the Royals do take that next step and begin knocking at postseason's doors, are we ready to assume a leaner, more critical attitude toward everything? News about Rafael Furcal including the Royals in his final four would resonate like the bells of heaven. Just thinking of names like Brandon Lyon and Kyle Fransworth might make us miss meals. Jeff Francoeur? Forgettaboutit. The world and everything in it might positively look different, colored by expectation. What will become of our rosy suburb then, the quiet swingsets vandalized, the roads agape with potholes and logging the complaints of blaring horns, the schools hijacked by destitution and decay? It would be a haven for Rob Blagojevich, a thoroughfare for human mules, a paved killing field awaiting Earth's last grand battle. And all this with no guarantee that a playoff berth is in the offing.

Baseball: sometimes, it makes you shake your head.

Joe Gordon, Grudzielanek, Bill James and Zack Greinke's wife

2008-12-08T18:27:00.002-05:00

As Winter Meetings commence...

MLB.com: "Second baseman Mark Grudzielanek, as promised, officially declined the Royals' offer of salary arbitration on Sunday night."

As promised indeed. Nice work, Dayton (and Mark).
Same site: "Joe Gordon, the first member of the Baseball Hall of Fame's 2009 class, was the first manager in Royals franchise history."

Congrats.
Mrs. Zach (sic) Greinke. (Scroll down.)

This while reports indicate Dayton Moore's asking for five players for Greinke -- three starters and two prospects, according to Jayson Stark.

And, oh-by-the-way, there's not even any indication they want to deal David DeJesus or Mark Teahen, either. So who's the most available Royal by far? Jose Guillen.
Via Royals Authority, Most Valuable Network's Red Sox blog interviews Bill James:

You've said that Bret Saberhagen is the closest you've come to seeing a pitcher achieve perfection. Which active pitcher would you say comes the closest?

Another Royal. . .Zack Greinke. At the end of the season he had that same look that Saberhagen did in the 1980s and Catfish Hunter did in the 1970s--that he was doing effortlessly the things that everybody else struggles to do.

A brief tribute to Greg Maddux

2008-12-07T04:02:00.004-05:00

One of my favorite players of all time will announce his retirement Monday at baseball's winter meetings in Las Vegas. Greg Maddux, 42, will ride off into the sunet with his four Cy Youngs and as the winningest pitcher alive, and knowing him, it'll be an understated press conference followed by a modest and quiet retirement. He never was one to make much noise, though he had a game that could inspire a million words (and has -- an example worth reading would be Tom Verducci's story, which was anthologized in SI's Great Baseball Writing).

ESPN's Gene Wojciechowski wrote, "You can list the number of great Maddux on-the-record quotes on the back of a Sweet'N Low packet," but that's not exactly true. As Verducci relates in his recent online column, "I dislike absolutes, but of this I am sure: Greg Maddux is the most fascinating interview, the smartest baseball player and the most highly formed baseball player I have encountered in 27 years covering major league baseball." And to prove it, there follows a list of quotes and anecdotes that make you sit back and wonder what sort of artist we've just lost the pleasure of seeing.

Verducci concludes:

This appreciation, not by accident, made no mention of any career statistic of Maddux, no more than you would cite records sold to describe the voice of Sinatra. Maddux is synonymous with the art of pitching. He was that good. Never again will we see, or hear, anyone quite like him.

And for the record, our favorite Maddux quote has to be, "I guess it's funnier when he tells the joke without wearing any clothes." [San Diego Union-Tribune].

Odds and ends before the weekend

2008-12-05T03:32:00.004-05:00

We haven't done a links post since a long, long time ago.... It used to make me smile.

We kick things off with a quote from the man upstairs, owner David Glass, via Bob Dutton of the KC Star:

“We’ve got a lot going for us next year. The stadium is going to be sensational. I was up there a couple of weeks ago and toured through the construction, and I can visualize now much better what it exactly is going to look like. Fans are going to love it. I’m a fan, and I’m going to love it. And we need a good product on the field to complement what’s happening with the stadium.”

Thus an increase of payroll to about $70 million.

"You just put money in," he said with a chuckle. "It's simple."

In this day and age, we imagine it was a dark, hoarse, ironic chuckle.

(On a related note: I was at Walmart last night and noticed that the prices on the display signs have excised decimal points and are only displaying single-digit numbers, like $7 and $5, which I understand is not all that different from $6.99 and $4.99 in real terms, and that after tax it's more like $7.07 and $5.06, but I couldn't help thinking, after seeing the prices listed as skinny integers, HOLY CRAP THIS IS CHEAP!)
As Rickey Henderson prepares to enter baseball's Hall of Fame (we can not wait for his speech), FanIQ compiles the 25 best stories of "Rickey being Rickey."

Some of these might be apocryphal, but who cares? Trust us when we say there is no one story that deserves to be excerpted over the rest. They're all good, especially the first 10, and if you read to No. 23 and think you want to stop... don't.
More Rickey, via Baseball Think Factory: Golden Baseball League Makes Rickey Henderson $1M Hall of Fame Offer.
And while we're talking BBTF: their readers are tough. Check out the comments.
With a homicide rate of 48 per 100,000, Venezuela is the most dangerous country in Latin America and one of the most dangerous in the world. Now they can put a rather well-known face on the worsening crime rate: Henry Blanco, former reserve catcher for the Cubs, whose brother was kidnapped and murdered earlier this week. Not much more really to say about this except the obvious: just awful.
Join Alex Gordon and Sluggerrrrrrrrrrrr (is that enough R's?) later today (3 p.m. at 1225 E. Santa Fe, next to the Salvation Army Thrift Store) as they distribute winter clothing and gifts to those in need.
And finally, local blogger Nick Sloan asks, "How big of a surprise would it really be for the Royals to win the American League Central?"

To which we say: shhhhh. Don't jinx it in December. Also, don't steal our thunder: we were going to make that prediction come March.

(But really: it would be a fairly sizable surprise.)

TGIF, everyone. The weekend approaches. Commencing countdown, engines on...

USA Today: "Royals 19th in power rankings... and hey, Bob, has the Internet officially killed us yet?"

2008-12-04T00:23:00.006-05:00

I don't want to be a dick here, so I'll say off the bat that I give USA Today mad props for keeping baseball alive in the national conscience by writing about it in December. But this is one of the most pointless articles I've ever read. When you promise an "in-depth look at each team" ("Over the offseason, Sports Weekly will take an in-depth look at each team, bottom to top, in the order of our final 2008 Power Rankings"), you should deliver something better than this...

The Royals, who have had five winning seasons in the last two decades, believe they have a strong bullpen and a stabilized rotation and that they can bump up their run production.

This can be rewritten, "The Royals, who have won 204 games in the millennium's first three years -- but possibly fewer, depending on whether you're one of those millennium-begins-in-Year-2000 or No,-it-begins-in-2001,-you-idiot types -- believe they have a strong bullpen and a stabilized rotation and that they can bump up their run production," and still be no more or less informative.

According to Elias Sports Bureau, the Royals were 39-63 when teams started a right-handed pitcher against them in 2008. And the opponents' righties were 51-29 with a 3.72 ERA in 102 starts against the Royals.

Uh... okay.

DH Billy Butler hit .330 and .274 in each of the season's final two months. Outfielder Mark Teahen hit .313 with three home runs and 10 multihit games in his final 24.

Awesome!

The rest of this post will be written in USA Today style.

There is a man in Kansas City who is sometimes referred to as "The Man." Capital letters. Your Honor. D.C. The Ruaiyat of Omar Khayyam. PTA. It is not generally done for civil rights activists or lawyers or even presidents. It is only done with a few gods.

Respect.

And "The Man" in these parts is Dayton Moore. He is the general manager of the Kansas City Royals, a club used to losing. But he has a plan to turn it all around.

The Man speaks. We will end with him speaking, because when he speaks, people listen.

Meche and Greinke were among the AL's leaders in strikeouts, each with 183. Davies showed signs of the success he had with the Atlanta Braves a few years ago "because he's staying on the attack," Moore says.

So are the Royals.

"We showed improvement last season," Moore says. "And we think we are on the right track to be better next year."

POSTSCRIPT 1: We're sorry. Here's our make-up gift to you (left-click to change colors).

POSTSCRIPT 2: Royals Review has a cool survey worth checking out, Royals Confidence Index. Our answers: 10, 10, 10, 10, 20, 10, 10, 10.

POSTSCRIPT 3: And speaking of surveys, check out Ray W's award nominations on Royals on Radio Etc. Exercise your indubitable right to vote and together we'll raise our fists to tyranny!

The Dayton Moore live chat

2008-12-03T02:03:00.003-05:00

Very dull questions, very predictable, though nothing less than heroic and majestic answers from our silver-tongued deliverer. Excerpts:

INTERLUDE: Congratulations, MLB.com, on the success of your live chat with a Major League general manager. Twenty-three of your interns asked a question of Dayton Moore, with some of them getting to ask multiple times! Thirty-two questions in all. I bet this wasn't in their job description, but which of your legion of snappy, energetic young folk wouldn't have killed to be a part of this, hmm?

Most topical question:
dharsh11: How will the economy effect the Royals and the moves you might make during this offseason?
Moore: We all recognize the downturn in our economy, but our focus is putting the best team we can on the field, and we are fortunate to have ownership that is willing to improve our Major League payroll 20-25 percent from last year.
Most random:
bdk5735: As a U.S. Navy veteran, and with all the military bases in the Royals footprint, why don't they have a camouflage uniform for special occasions such as the Fourth of July?
Moore: The Glass family is very mindful and supportive of the commitment that our men and women in uniform make for our country. Each season we have special ticket offers and a Military Appreciation Day celebration. We will continue to honor those serving our country in 2009 as well.
Longest answer:
holidaymvp: What is going to be the greatest strength of the 2009 Royals lineup?
Moore: I anticipate we will have much better balance offensively, with speed and on-base [potential] at the top of the lineup and power on the left and the right sides in the middle of the lineup. I also look forward to continued improvement from our young starting pitching. We were very pleased with the way Gil [Meche] and Zack [Greinke] threw the ball and improved. We were very encouraged by the way Kyle Davies and Luke Hochevar pitched and the way Brian Bannister finished and, of course, the dominance of Joakim Soria saving 43 of 45 games.
Shortest:
cpittier: What are your priorities as you enter the Winter Meetings?

Moore: With trading Leo Nunez and Ramon Ramirez, our obvious need is right-handed relief pitchers.

The man, we imagine, never blinked.

If we had to choose one hands-to-the-hair, jaws-to-the-ground, I-can't-believe-my-eyes-or-ears answer in terms of the enlightenment and shock it brought us -- and it's hard to pick just one, really -- it would have to be this:

dharsh11: Do you watch other sports, and if you do, how close do you follow them? Who is your favorite non-baseball team?
Moore: I enjoy watching other sports and I pull for all of our local teams. I love the energy and excitement that those teams bring to our community.

Saying goodbye (most likely) to Mark Grudzielanek

2008-12-02T03:11:00.006-05:00

A consummate pro like Mark Grudzielanek deserves a classy send-off, but, frankly, we're a bit weary of goodbyes. Recently there was Tyler Lumsden, and before that was Ramon Ramirez and Leo Nunez. We've said goodbye to middle infielders (then reacquired) and starting pitchers alike, not to mention a Royals legend and the best show on television. These sort of things grate on one's mind, so this will have to be quick.

First the news story and money quote: Grudzielanek was recently offered arbitration by the Royals, but the second baseman said yesterday from his San Diego home he's "95 percent, 98 percent sure" he's going to decline it and become a free agent. The reason:

"Not that I wouldn't want to come back there. It's not that I had a problem with anybody there. It just comes down to my situation and my career where it's at right now. I'm going to be a little spoiled here and try to go to somebody who has a little bit more opportunity to push to the [World] Series."

Grudzielanek came to the Royals in 2006 at the age of 36 and proceeded to have three highly average seasons (OPS+ of 90, 100 and 100). That may sound like a disparaging assessment, but we don't mean it to be. In those three years -- especially 2006, the last of the dark pre-Dayton Moore years -- very few Royals were average, and for Grudz, a vetaran, to have so quietly and unassumingly accepted his lot and performed his work to the best of his ability, day in and day out, tells you a lot about his character. He has, by all means, earned the right to explore his options and find a club that, as he so delicately put it, "has a little bit more opportunity to push to the Series."

He had some very gracious things to say about the Royals and Moore in parting:

"I hope people do understand. I enjoyed my time there and really had a lot of fun. Tell the fans I really enjoyed it and the experience there for three years was a blast, and hopefully I helped out in moving the team forward -- whether it was between the lines or in the clubhouse."

"One of the best in the business is Dayton running the show and trying to get the players that will help get that team where they want to be. I'm just not so sure how quick it will be, and I'd rather not take that kind of a chance."

All in all, this may actually be a blessing in disguise for the Royals, who'll get a sandwich draft pick (between first and second rounds) next summer as compensation for losing a Type-B free agent. But now's not the time to discuss that. Grudzielanek is moving on, and so it is we bid him adieu. We part, and probably not to meet again.

Of course, we're not going to let him off easy -- not until he's subjected to this picture once more:

Best of luck, Grudz. We hear the Cubs need a second baseman after they trade Mike Fontenot over here for Mark Teahen.

UPDATE, 12/3: From Rany:

I think – and this is only an educated guess, not predicated on any kind of insider knowledge – that Moore and Grudzielanek have reached some sort of gentlemen’s agreement, in which Moore has offered Grudzielanek arbitration with the understanding that it won’t be accepted.

Why? Well, it’s a win-win situation, or at the very least, it’s a win-no lose situation. The Royals get themselves a supplemental first round draft pick, which is a very valuable commodity. The Royals got one of those last year when David Riske left, and used it to select Mike Montgomery, a high school left-hander who was named the #1 prospect in the Arizona League and the Royals #4 prospect overall by Baseball America.

"The most perfect double-tapered shit I've ever had in my life. True story"

2008-12-02T02:50:00.004-05:00

"Who's the pitchers in this game?"

This is from Big Donkeys, and I'm well aware it's also from Deadspin circa mid-September and The Pitch blog, but I've decided it deserves a post of its own anyway:

This is George Brett in the video:

When was the last time you shit your pants? Been a while? I was in Vegas a couple years ago -- this is an honest-to-God true story -- staying at the Bellagio, I went over to the Mirage for dinner and met some friends of mine over there...

And so it goes. I wonder what Mike Huckabee would say about this.

A beat reporter takes your questions

2008-12-01T01:52:00.005-05:00

Dick Kaegel of MLB.com:

I'm curious about Jeff King and Jay Bell, who came over from Pittsburgh in the late 1990s. Where have they ended up?
-- Heath K., Houston
Shortstop Bell and first baseman King were obtained in a deal on Dec. 13, 1996, that sent third baseman Joe Randa and pitchers Jeff Granger, Jeff Martin and Jeff Wallace to the Pirates. Bell was with the Royals for one season, hit .291, became a free agent and signed with Arizona. King banged a total of 52 homers in 1997-98 for the Royals and, on May 21, 1999, abruptly retired.
Bell played through 2003 and later served as bench coach for the Diamondbacks. He stepped down after 2006 to spend more time with his family, but remains a special assistant to manager Bob Melvin.
The last we heard of the reclusive King, he was living happily with his family on his ranch in Montana.

We bring this up for three reasons:

We had absolutely no interest in Jeff King or Jay Bell, in fact haven't thought about them for years.
If not for the patently bland response and the 50-50 split on pre-retirement and post-retirement information, as if just to take up space -- especially considering the questioner was asking exclusively about post-retirement -- we could've sworn Kaegel made up the question himself.
We just realized how incredibly desperate Mr. Kaegel is for fan questions.

In light of that, here's the link again for the query form. You should really ask away. Where'd Bip Roberts end up? Why does Sal Fasano get to appear in Time magazine? Is Rowdy Hardy named after the pro wrestler best known for choking out Hulk Hogan at StarrCade '06, giving the Hulkster his first clean loss in six-and-a-half years? Et cetera. Go help out a hard-working journalist and you can consider your good deed of the month done.

UPDATE: The subhead on the article: "Beat reporter Dick Kaegel answers fans' burning questions." Goddamnit, if I don't find out about the whereabouts of Jeff King and Jay Bell, I'm going to shoot myself!

From IDWT with love

2008-11-27T16:16:00.004-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Thanks to Theresa K for the picture.

The latest on Teahen trade rumors

2008-11-26T01:00:00.006-05:00

PRELUDE: This post is borderline NSFW.

When the hot stove cools, leave it to MLB Trade Rumors to turn up the heat. The latest from Tim Dierkes:

Earlier today I spoke with a source familiar with the Cubs' thinking, and dug up enough info for a fresh post.

While Mark Teahen is a player of interest for the Cubs, they certainly won't be trading Mike Fontenot and Sean Marshall for him. The Cubs don't consider Teahen the middle of the order bat they require.
Royals outfielder David DeJesus also interests the Cubs, but the source has the impression Dayton Moore would have to be overwhelmed to trade him. There seems a good chance DeJesus stays put this winter.

The reaction from Cubs fans to potentially acquiring Teahen, as far as we can tell, ranges from "I would rather have [Jim] Edmonds" to "I don't think wasting money (or talent) on Teahan [sic] is a very good idea at all." We thought foisting Teahen on the Cubs for Fontenot and Marshall was a stretch to begin with -- heck, we'd take Fontenot straight up -- but then we heard, just tonight, that someone or other said the deal may involve Jose Guillen and Kosuke Fukudome. In which case -- if this were even remotely true -- fuk yes! But the chances of Guillen/Teahen for Fukudome are fairly close to nil, and once again we feel it necessary to remind everyone that rumors are fun to indulge in but ultimately meaningless.

This post will self-erase in five minutes.

And yes, we did this to lower the bar of expectation so we'll have something to be pleasantly surprised about when the Teahen deal finally goes through.

POSTSCRIPT: Here's my bit of fun for tonight, thanks to Royals Review (HT to Royals on Radio Etc.): a couple days ago the guys over at RR linked to a site called GenderAnalyzer and listed the "manliest" Royals sites on the 'Net. Obviously something's wrong with their top 5, because No. 1 comes in at 92% (Rany on the Royals), while this site checks in at 94%. So, what's up with that?

Anyway, we know why our score's so high: more than one picture of women. Another one's below, which -- I'm not making this up -- is one of the hits of a Google search for "Fukudome." Again, I can't make this stuff up.

And don't worry, she's wearing underwear.

UPDATE, 2:38 a.m. ET: As we've already opened this can of worms, there's no reason not to take it to its logical conclusion -- other women who've appeared in pictures on this blog, arranged from latest to earliest: Anne V, Miss Atomic Bomb, Alyssa Milano, Tina Cervasio, Erin Andrews, Jessica Alba.

And, of course, Red Sox girl:

Goodbye to Lumsden, inroads to India and a new Royals blog

2008-11-25T02:01:00.006-05:00

Three items at this late hour:

1. Tyler Lumsden, the prospect we were all excited about in the Mike MacDougal trade (now we're all excited about that other guy in the deal, Daniel Cortes), was packed and shipped to Houston yesterday for "a player to be named later or cash." The "or" is strange. It can't be both? And how much cash? We're guessing a pittance for baseball standards, a few hundred-thousand perhaps. Maybe it'd be better to take the player, but... who? Such mystery. PTBNL is a scourge.

2. This is a rather amazing story out of Pittsburgh/India: a U.S. marketer decided to organize a baseball-throwing contest in India called Million Dollar Arm in which the contestant to throw a series of pitches that hit at least 85 m.p.h. on the radar, and all for strikes, would win $100,000 (which, in India, is a lot) and baseball training in the United States. That's quite a contest, if we may say. The winner, 19-year-old lefty Rinku Singh, threw in the low-90s. But Pittsburgh scouts at this event were so impressed with another guy, 20-year-old righty Dinesh Patel, who was a little wild but threw harder, that they decided to sign them both. And with one stroke of the pen -- or handshake or phone call or whatever -- Singh and Patel became the first-ever Indian athletes to sign professional sports contracts outside their country.

That bears repeating: the two are the first athletes from India to sign professional sports contracts outside of India, a country of more than 1.1 billion people. (According to AP -- we don't want to get the wording wrong -- "They are believed to be the first athletes from India to sign professional sports contracts outside their country" (italics ours).)

An incredible story, really. We said earlier this summer and last year (in a post titled "Imports," coincidentally enough) we'd keep our eyes on Pirates GM Neal Huntington; it's nice of him to justify that attention so soon. The Pirates: a team you can feel right rooting for.

3. New blog to report: Royalscentricity, a clean-looking site which has eight posts up as of this writing.

We're finding out about these things every week, especially as it's the offseason and more and more fans are jumping on the bandwagon -- who knew the Royals had such a large blogger bandwagon, right? -- so do let us know if our blogroll is missing anything.

And we're officially soliciting advice as to whether "blog roll" should be one word or two. We've oscillated from the very beginning.

It's on the young people

2008-11-24T16:43:00.002-05:00

Nineteen-, 20-, 21-year-olds dictate the direction of baseball franchises, and so it is that Baseball America fulfills a need, giving fans glimpses of the future, sometimes long before it's arrived (or ever arrives at all). Here's its list of the Royals' 10 best prospects:

Mike Moustakas
Eric Hosmer
Daniel Cortes
Mike Montgomery
Tim Melville
Danny Duffy
Danny Gutierrez
Carlos Rosa
Kila Ka'aihue
Blake Wood

Most of these guys have name recognition, and many of them, judging by their early-career success, give us reason for optimism.

Here was 2007's list:

Mike Moustakas, ss
Daniel Cortes, rhp
Luke Hochevar, rhp
Blake Wood, rhp
Danny Duffy, lhp
Carlos Rosa, rhp
Julio Pimentel, rhp
Matt Mitchell, rhp
Yasuhiko Yabuta, rhp
Derrick Robinson, of

Notice that Hosmer, Montgomery and Melville were all new draftees in the class of '08. It has to be a good sign they all jumped immediately into the top 5, and that one of the players in last year's top 5 is now on the big-league roster.

Here's where nos. 6-10 are now:

Pimentel, age 22, acquired via trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers (along with Blake Johnson and Odalis Perez) for Elmer Dessens. Double-A Arkansas. Regressed last season with a 5.38 ERA, 115 strikeouts and 52 walks in 157.1 innings, but he's still very young.

Mitchell, 19, drafted in 14th round in 2007. Last year at Class-A Burlington: 8-8, 3.47 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 77 K and 25 BB in 116.2 innings. Not bad for a 19-year-old.

Yabuta, 35. Optioned to Triple-A Omaha but, unlike Luke Hudson, opted not to file for free agency.

Robinson, 21, drafted in 4th round in 2006. Showed no power in Class-A Wilmington but did steal 62 bases last season. Career line: .243/.314/.314. More grooming necessary.

An oblique but earnest thought: is anything in the world tougher than parenting?

On relievers and Dick Vitale

2008-11-20T22:40:00.006-05:00

Yes, Dick Vitale weighs in on the Ramon Ramirez-Coco Crisp trade. This is completely ripped out of a Joe Posnanski blog post, by the way:

“Oh and hey, by the way, out there in Kansas City, I think they got a great deal with Coco Crisp. They traded that reliever, Ramirez, and he’s pretty good, but I think Coco Crisp really helps that Kansas City. And then, you know, getting Mike Jacobs earlier from Florida, he gives the Royals some power, I think that was a big addition too, I think the Royals could be knocking on the door up there, I saw it with Tampa, I can see it in Kansas City, with Jacobs hitting some home runs, and Crisp running down fly balls in centerfield …”

While we're on the subject, Posnanski's column in the KC Star today points out that Dayton Moore has a propensity for trading away relievers. Poz lists: Jeremy Affeldt, J.P. Howell, Ambiorix Burgos, Andy Sisco, Octavio Dotel and Leo Nuñez. And what the Royals got in return:

Howell for Joey Gathright: Dayton Moore's first trade intoxicated us all -- maybe just a buzz, at least -- and no matter how you assessed this, you have to admit you had fun with it. This video (scroll to the bottom), remember?
Affeldt for Ryan Shealy (basically): Affeldt's been alright in Colorado and Shealy, let's face it, hasn't lived up to his potential, but there's time yet. We all know the September Big Sully had last season, giving us hope there may be more of where that came from.
Burgos for Brian Bannister: Burgos blew out his arm and may never be the same again -- a wild, unreliable reliever. Bannister had a good year followed by a bad year, but tell me you don't love him. Seriously. For about a month last off-season, he more or less single-handedly made Kansas City the cynosure of sabermetricians everywhere.
Sisco for Ross Gload: naysay to your heart's content, but Sisco has done nothing and Gload has been a consummate professional. Sure, not the ideal starting first baseman, but he's done what's been asked of him and, let's face it, the Royals would have about three fewer wins against the Yankees if not for Gload's bat (career 1.083 OPS against the Yanks, with three homers, tied for most against any opponent).
Dotel for Kyle Davies: very young pitcher who went 4-1 in September with 2.27 ERA and 24 strikeouts and only seven walks in 31.2 innings.
Nunez for Mike Jacobs. Nothing more needs to be said here for a while.

Not on the list: Elmer Dessens, Horacio Ramirez, Denny Bautista... do miss any of them?

One more: Royal Tower, which just ascended some 20 spots on our blogroll (really my fault for not pushing 'em up earlier), has come out with another fine analysis of a Royals prospect, RHP Daniel Cortes. Writes Keith: "He went from short and skinny (short by scout's standards) to tall and well built, and it's helped him throw harder and put more spin on his breaking pitches. Luckily, a lot of that filling out came with the Royals and not the White Sox..." Another steal by Dayton Moore, yessiree. Remember, all he surrendered was Mike MacDougal... a reliever.

Oh, and there's this: the Royals added Henry Barrera to the 40-man roster today. Who's Henry Barrera? Just someone who struck out 78 in 57.2 innings in Class A Wilmington last year with a 2.81 ERA. Lock and load, baby. The bullpen's getting restocked as we speak.

Two new Royals blogs/sites

2008-11-20T15:25:00.005-05:00

Found out about these two recently, mostly thanks to Royals Authority:

JoakimTough and ChiTown on the Royals: follows the formula of "Rob and Rany" and Matt and Wally (recently returned from a hiatus) -- two fans duke it out on topics like old players and the minor league system. The profiles of the blog's contributors suggest two keen, devoted Royals fans, which the world needs more of.
Light Hitting Infielder: owned and operated by Greg Schaum, host of a Royals postgame show on 610 Sports Radio and podcast called Baseball This Week. Tonight's show will be No. 8 (we think).

There seems to be a few new Royals blogs each offseason, which is only natural and good. The blog roll to the right, ever expanding, reflects a nation's growing interest in our hometown team.

Of course, we lose a few blogs every offseason as well. So it goes, the cycle of life and death. What is life in the face of death? More life, just life.

UPDATE: And another one: Royals Home Plate.

Royals trade another middle reliever for Coco Crisp

2008-11-19T16:21:00.006-05:00

Guess Dayton Moore wasn't done after all. Coco Crisp adds much-coveted speed to the Royals lineup and defensive prowess to the outfield. He'll be the Opening Day center fielder, meaning David DeJesus will move to his more natural positition in left. Although Bob Dutton's article for the KC Star doesn't mention Crisp's on-base percentage (admit it, you were skimming the page or scrolling down to find it), it was a healthy .344 last season, which was around league average. It would've ranked fifth among Royals regulars in '08.

Dick Kaegel of MLB.com has a longer story about the trade, in which Moore is quoted:

"He's somebody with a lot of experience, been a part of championship teams, has the ability to play center field and has had success at the top of the lineup. That was very appealing for us."

Another hard-throwing middle reliever jettisoned for offense: we've seen Moore do this before, and we're on the record as saying it's almost always a good value deal. Of course, Crisp stands to make five million more dollars than Ramirez next season, pushing the Royals' payroll close to $70 million. Not sure how owner David Glass is taking this -- perhaps apprehensively, with a large cup of black coffee -- but if it'll get the Royals to .500 on the road to contention in 2010, we're all for it. And let's be realistic: Crisp is a bridge, not a solution. He has an $8 million option on his contract for after this season, and by that point -- unless Jose Guillen gets dumped -- he really may be too expensive to keep.

The flip-side: as Red Sox fans get to know Ramon Ramirez, we have a feeling they'll come to appreciate his contributions. Here's Boston GM Theo Epstein on the record about the guy who was Joakim Soria's primary setup man:

"He has a plus fastball, 92 to 95 miles per hour, and an outstanding power changeup. A lot of people think it's a split, it's actually a changeup, 87 to 88. That's a swing-and-miss pitch for him against lefthanded and righthanded hitters, and a pretty good slider. He's very quietly had a tremendous amount of success in the major leagues over the last two seasons. We were looking for that type of upgrade to add to our bullpen."

Then again, there's been a lot of talk of the Red Sox flipping Ramirez to another team (Texas, for instance) for a catcher, but who knows. The Ramirez boat has sailed, and what happens from here depends on the will of the gods. Not that we didn't appreciate his services, but as this commenter on the Red Sox blog The Joy of Sox points out, "Why does this make me sad? Because when any player leaves the team, unless you absolutely hated him (and maybe not even then), you feel sad." This was just before someone said, "I feel sorry for Coco going to a bad team. He deserves better," followed by, "And to Kansas City. Poor guy," then this kick to the gonads: "As a fan of Coco I hope the Royals flip him to another team. I don't see that happening but for a veteran, proven player like Coco who could be any team's starting CF, it's a kick to the nuts to be traded to KC at this point in that franchise's history." With Boston Dirt Dogs jesting, "Midwest Not Best: Coco Can Kiss the Postseason Goodbye," you'll have to excuse this French: fucking New Englanders!

One more word on Coco: he's been on this site before. Entertaining the ladies.

POSTSCRIPT: We'll keep our eyes on the Mark Teahen/Cubs trade rumors.

What they're saying about the Royals: UmpBump

2008-11-12T09:12:00.003-05:00

From that site's offseason "What they need now" series:

The 2008 Royals were twelth [sic] out of 14 AL teams in OBP. So what did the Royals do to address the problem? They kicked off the trade season by dealing for Marlins 1B Mike Jacobs, that’s what.

Or put another way:

The 2008 Royals were thirteenth out of 14 AL teams in HR. So what did the Royals do to address the problem? They kicked off the trade season by dealing for Marlins 1B Mike Jacobs, that’s what.

There. See what a little positive spin can do? The sun is out, and it's a gonna be a fine day.

Fourth? FOURTH???

2008-11-11T02:13:00.003-05:00

Actually, that's not bad. Congratulations to Mike Aviles for finishing fourth in AL Rookie of the Year voting. Or, maybe not congratulations, but something close to that that you'd say to an unlikely shortstop who practically no one knew before the season but managed to secure a place on the roster by hitting and hitting and hitting some more, even hitting better than the guys who finished second (Alexei Ramirez) and third (Jacoby Ellsbury) in voting.

We'll give you one guess as to who won.

UPDATE, 11/11: Not all's lost: Aviles was named the team's player of the year, and Joakim Soria -- Senor Smoke, the Mexicutioner -- won pitcher of the year. Zack Greinke also got a prize.

BP's Christina Kahrl talks about the Jacobs-Nunez trade

2008-11-10T23:59:00.005-05:00

Eric Sanlnocencio of Blog Talk Radio recently interviewed Baseball Prospectus's Christina Kahrl about, among other things, the Mike Jacobs-Leo Nunez trade. No, this topic will not die. You can hear the entire show here, or scroll to the 43-minute mark, where Kahrl comes in:

My initial reaction was really kind of just disappointment, because while Mike Jacobs had value and is probably one of the 30 best first baseman in Major League today, and while it would be easy to make a comparison and say, "Yeah, he's an improvement over Ross Gload" -- but there again, then you get into there are probably a dozen people, like in the minor leagues, who would be an improvement over Ross Gload, so that's really kind of a straw man, you can't make that comparison and just say, "Wow, they got Mike Jacobs and they've upgraded at first base." Well of course they had, it would almost be impossible to do worse.

So that's really I think the basis of comparison you have to go on, which is, in the entire universe of potential first baseman, why would you go get Mike Jacobs? It's a combination of factors that are involved, but really just makes you wonder what they were thinking. I mean, between the amount of depth they have at first base in the organization -- I mean, it's one of the only poisitons where the royals have a glut of talent, is first baseman on the way up -- and beyond that, Jacobs is now arbitration eligible...

She goes on for a while to list all the cons of this trade we've already heard. Here's the thing: when you're talking about basis of comparison, shouldn't that be between Mike Jacobs and Leo Nunez? Says Kahrl later on: "What is Mike Jacobs's worth? Well he really probably is worth only about a guy like Leo Nunez, who is just another live-armed right-hander who got a good fastball, but he isn't striking people out with it, and maybe he turns into something and maybe he just becomes a reliable middle reliever."

One more line:

Okay, so you're gunning for someday getting to 77 wins? Is this really the master plan?

Of course not. But baseball GMs seem smarter these days, or if not smarter, at least not as dumb. Sure, ideally we'd have Josh Hamilton, but there aren't too many Hamilton-types who can be plucked for cheap. And the Royals have problems: years of mismanagement have depleted their farm system and there just aren't that many tradeable parts. So, again, allow us to say: giving up a middle reliever for a power-hitting lefty is not a bad trade.

But I don't want to sound cantankerous. Kahrl does a great job over at BP, and her article (subscription only) on the transaction was actually quite fair and balanced, weighing pros with cons and analyzing the trade from the Marlins' perspective as well. And as we're all about optimism over here, we'll excerpt Kahrl's concluding paragraph:

Finally, to touch base on the waiver claim as Moore raids his former employers in Atlanta, Cuevas might represent an easy one-for-one replacement for Nunez. He may be a reliever in the making—he's a beefy guy with a violent delivery that perhaps exacerbated the labrum issues that shelved him much of the season. His fastball sits in the 91-93 mph range and touches the mid-90s, but his curve and changeup aren't great. If the Dominican's lack of a solid secondary pitch, the health woes, and the fact that he'll be 25 all add up to a change in roles, it wouldn't be entirely surprising, and if it pans out, it would rate as a nice little free-talent find. If it doesn't, consider it a case of nothing ventured, nothing gained.

That's Jairo Cuevas, claimed from the Braves last month. Raid away, Dayton.

POSTSCRIPT: The Royal Tower's analysis of Dayton Moore's trades from the past two seasons.

UPDATE, 11/26: Damn!

Cuevas was claimed off waivers from Atlanta on Oct. 24 but, on Wednesday, the Braves claimed him back off waivers from the Royals.

Dayton Moore speaks on potential winter signings

2008-11-06T17:51:00.002-05:00

Today's Kansas City Star tells us that as for winter signings, there basically may not be any more. Bob Dutton reporting:

Payroll is the primary problem.
The Royals’ projected $60 million budget already has $41.4 million committed to nine players. Club officials now expect Jacobs to cost $3 million or more after briefings this week from MLB officials on the anticipated state of the market.

Moore was also good enough to state the obvious on the Mike Jacobs trade:

“Don’t get confused when we bring a player in, and he doesn’t fit the mold. We can only take advantage of those players who are available.
“Should we do nothing because (Jacobs’) on-base percentage is not what we want? Should we do nothing even though our coaches think they can help this guy improve and when we know this guy is a hard worker?
“Mike Jacobs has the kind of raw power you can’t develop, and that we can’t afford in the free-agent market. So when you get a chance to acquire someone like that, you do it. I think it makes our team better.”

On trade rumors

2008-11-05T13:37:00.004-05:00

The latest out of MLB Trade Rumors (HT to reader Lukas J.):

The Braves are mentioning Jeff Francoeur "in trade talks with anyone who will listen." Royals GM Dayton Moore is known to be a fan. Looking at 2008's bottom ten in OBP...Moore signed Jose Guillen (.300), acquired Mike Jacobs (.299), and has been linked in trade talks to Francoeur (.294) and Yuniesky Betancourt (.300). And don't forget Willy Taveras (.308).

Across Royals Nation (or municipality, maybe), folks are rising with pitchforks. Jeff Francoeur? .294 OBP! .294 OBP! .294 OBP!

But let's slow down a bit. Where did this rumor originate? Why is Dayton Moore "known to be a fan"? Let's see, shall we?

Aug. 15, KC Star's Mike Flanagan writes a post on his blog titled "Braves' Francoeur to the Royals?" The first line of that post reads: "OK, OK, that's pure speculation."

Sept. 20, Sarah Green of MLB Trade Rumors writes a post titled "Francoeur to the Royals?" The first line reads, "Pure speculation here, but the Jeff Francoeur-to-the-Royals rumors continue."

(Don't bother with that "rumors" link. It takes you to a July 24 Trade Rumors post that says, without disclaimer, "The Royals are said to be interested in Francoeur.")

Nov. 3, Braves blog Talking Chop writes a post titled "Does Anyone Want Jeff Francoeur?" In it contains this line: "It occurred to me that the Royals might have some interest. After all, they did just acquire Mike Jacobs....

"I'm not seriously advocating this, but in the world of rumors, if the Royals think Jacobs can help them, then they probably think Francoeur can too. Add to that the obvious connection to the Braves that Royals GM Dayton Moore has, and it's not too much of a leap."

So, as far as we can tell, the sources of "known to be a fan" comes from 1) speculation and 2) self-censured speculation.

Dayton Moore has said he would consider all possibilities for making the team better, and if that means trading another middle reliever for Jeff Francoeur, it would be brilliant. Of course, we don't think the Braves would part with the former SI cover boy for so little, but that's beyond the point. From here on, let's take rumors for what they are: salty, unappetizing, teeth-crunching grist. You can try to have fun with them, but don't throw them at others or go crazy with the extrapolations.

As for Betancourt, it's been reported that the Royals tried to get him for Billy Butler before the 2007 season. That was, of course, when Betancourt was still a prospect bursting with potential. As Bob Dutton reports for the KC Star:

The Mariners have a new general manager in Jack Zduriencik. They lost 101 games last season. Betancourt’s development plateaued over the last two years. And Seattle can use some punch after scoring fewer runs last season than all but one American League team.
It’s a long shot that also produced claims by both clubs that no talks have taken place.

The Francoeur talks we can deal with: grist for the rumor mill, why not. Betancourt? Let's put a stop to that now.

A voice of reason speaks on that trade

2008-11-03T14:24:00.003-05:00

Clark Fosler of the redesigned Royals Authority asks simply, "Why all the angst over Mike Jacobs?"

Picture via Wax Heaven, the guy who in this video ("Florida Marlins trade Mike Jacobs for NOTHING") calls the Royals "baseball purgatory." A Marlins fan calls Kansas City purgatory... now there's the day.

A celebration of baseball, the Cubs and Wrigley Field

2008-11-02T05:10:00.000-05:00

"Don't worry about it! Enjoy it! Enjoy it! Don't worry about it! There are no holes in this team! This is the ball club!"

--Ron Santo, talking about the Cubs, in August

As it's now the offseason, and this is Gary Smith writing in Sports Illustrated after all, we feel it acceptable to do this without needing to apologize to Cubs fans...

These are excerpts from the story "Are you ready for a howling, pagan, YouTube Oktoberfiesta?", from the Sept. 29 issue, on a subject so good (and pure (as to transcend winning and losing)?) that it forced the writer to deploy the word "walkingest":

Excerpt 1:

On this team's worst days, the bleachers at Wrigley were the best place in sports; I was itching to see what they'd be like on the Cubs' best days. What sort of winners were the Lovable Losers, I wondered. What happens to a victim when his victimhood, in its 100th year, turns to dominance? Or so it seemed....

The Cubs were entering this series playing at a .721 clip at home, owned baseball's best record and sat six games ahead of the second-place Brewers. Could God be that heartless? Could this all be another cruel joke?
No. It couldn't be...

Excerpt 2:

"...I know I should be expecting doom, because I always have before, and if you don't, you're not a real Cubs fan. But I don't this time. I just don't."

Excerpt 3:

But Lynn was sure Ronnie Santo was right. "We're used to devastation," she said, "but I just don't have that feeling this year."

SI ran the cover story just before the playoffs, and per format, the letters in response to the story were printed three weeks later, some bemoaning the cover curse ("I speak for all Cubs fans when I ask you to please never put us on the cover again. In fact, don't even mention us in the magazine at all. When the 2009 baseball preview comes out, pretend we don't exist") and others having fun at the team's expense ("I have finally figured out what Cubs fans meant by their constant proclamation, It's Gonna Happen. They were obviously referring to being swept out of the postseason in the first round"). The last two were especially good: a reference to the Phillies and "the 1989 movie Back to the Future Part II."

If that isn't enough to get you to click on the story link, understand this: ultimately, Gary Smith's story is a naked, unreserved, unabashed celebration of the Cubs and baseball -- and a part of us which is intrinsically human -- and my point in linking to it isn't to provoke Cubs fans still smarting from last month's loss but to remind them that there is something intrinsically good about being a baseball fan in general and, yes, a Cubs fan in particular, and that if you think about it, there's only a shade over three months' time until pitchers and catchers report, and only a few weeks after that when spring training begins, and a month more when the game we love rises again like a quiet sunrise to reveal the spring bloom in its all-American splendor. Comfort in the tides of time, which roll forth regardless of your wanting its acceleration or delay; peace in the coming of days.

The heat was savage. Today's was an afternoon game. Here was Wrigleyville broiled to its essence, young men and women pouring from the surrounding bars into the bleachers, pausing on the outdoor concourse to purchase a pair of 16-ounce plastic cups of beer, double-fisting them to an unclaimed patch of bench, stripping down to bare chests and bikini tops and settling in for a four-hour house party, the scents of suntan lotion, hops, barley and baked flesh inseparable by the bottom of the second. Marvelous multitaskers, able to eat, drink, text, troll, couple and clamor for the Cubbies all at once.

...

"I've been all over the world," Fred continued, unperturbed. "I've scuba-dived the Great Barrier Reef and motorcycled the Icefields Parkway in the Canadian Rockies, and, yes, they're both beautiful. But I realized when I first came here 45 years ago that this ballpark on a sunny day was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen, and that it still is today. So the bathrooms smell like piss? So Larry Craig wouldn't like our men's room? Well, I don't watch the ball game from there. This ballpark doesn't need a damn thing. Winning or losing stopped making me happy or sad years ago. I just love to be here."

"The greatest World Series speech in the history of sports"

2008-11-01T22:00:00.006-04:00

So says the blog The Fightins. Judge for yourself:

Philadelphia...

POSTSCRIPT 1: Jason Werth, who stands after Chase Utley delivered those words, was probably drunk. Via Deadspin:

Photo by Meghan Zamborsky

POSTSCRIPT 2: You won't get the full article unless you're a Baseball Prospectus subscriber, but the first few paragraphs from this article by Joe Sheehan is well worth reading:

Baseball is just fine. Rain, cold weather, long games, late games, poor TV ratings, worse umpiring... none of it matters. Nothing that makes this many people this happy is ever going to go away.

More on the Jacobs-Nunez trade

2008-11-01T19:14:00.003-04:00

As Mike Jacobs and Leo Nunez are the talk of baseball -- Baseball Think Factory and Boys of Summer are the latest to weigh in on the trade -- we'd like to present, via RoyalsRetro of Royals Review, Jacobs's and Nunez's ZIPS projections:

2009 ZiPS Projection - Mike Jacobs
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
             AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG   OPS+  DR  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2009         478  67  125  33  1  24  82  36 100   1  .262  .313  .485   106   -7
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Opt. (15%)   544  84  152  40  2  30 101  44 104   1  .279  .334  .526   122   -5
Pes. (15%)   412  43   98  24  1  17  60  28  94   0  .238  .287  .425    84  -10
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top Offensive Comps: Rico Brogna, Gordy Coleman

2009 ZiPS Projection - Leo Nunez
-----------------------------------------------------------------
           W   L   G  GS   IP    H   ER  HR  BB  SO   ERA   ERA+
-----------------------------------------------------------------
2009        2   2  43   0   49   49   23   6  19  36  4.22   101
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Opt. (15%)  4   2  47   0   56   50   20   5  18  45  3.21   133
Pes. (15%)  2   2  36   0   39   43   23   6  19  27  5.31    81
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Top Comps:  John Verhoeven, Joey McLaughlin

ZIPS is a system developed by Dan Szymborski to project individual performance. You can learn much more about it here (download-able RTF file).

In his post, RoyalsRetro takes a sarcastic tone and tosses out this bit of preemptive mockery: "He failed to factor in grit though. Is Jacobs gritty? He is white. He has played for a contender. He is a former catcher. The signs of grit are there." No one's called Jacobs "gritty" yet, as far as I can tell, but when someone does... joke's on you!

As for us here, we'd like to focus on the positives from the trade, several of which detailed in yesterday's post. Here're more:

As Boys of Summer points out, Jacobs's batting average on balls in play was an abnormal .260, which is about as low as Brian Bannister's BABIP was in 2007 (.262). The league average is around .300. When Bannister's BABIP strayed towards that mean this past season -- .310 -- it led to an increase of nearly two full earned runs allowed per nine innings (5.76 from 3.87). Why shouldn't we expect an equivalent jump in batting average -- let's say, oh, 20 points -- and whatever the equivalent of that would be in on-base percentage for Jacobs this year?
Jacobs's OPS was .114 lower at Dolphin Stadium than on the road in 2008, which makes sense because Miami is an awful place to play baseball. For his career there's a difference of 10 in OPS+ in his home/away splits, which is significant. (In the interest of fairness, we'd like to point out that Kauffman Stadium was statistically as much a pitcher's park as Dolphin Stadium last season, but about 30 times prettier.)
Have we mentioned Leo Nunez is a middle reliever who has a hard time staying healthy? Look, we all loved Nunez. The man has electric stuff, and he always gave maximum effort (though from a guy his size, that's kind of scary). But at the risk of besmirching his good name, this wasn't a big loss.

Of course, if he turns into a dominant starter... but you didn't hear that here.

That's enough for now. Dayton's not done dealing though, so stay tuned.

The word on the Mike Jacobs-Leo Nunez trade

2008-10-31T02:40:00.006-04:00

You've heard? Mike Jacobs, nee Florida first baseman and now Kansas City's DH (we can only assume), was acquired in a deal that sent reliever Leo Nunez to the Marlins.

When we first heard about this we thought it was a fair trade: neither guy is perfect, making both of them expendable, and both are more valuable on their new clubs than their old ones, though for different reasons (the Marlins hate guys who make seven-digit salaries; that they still win around 80 games every year with their anemic payroll is a testament to club's front office, which is more potent, in my opinion, than even Oakland's, and how GM Larry Beinfest doesn't win Executive of the Year every year is beyond me).

A quick stroll through the Royals blogosphere, however, revealed roughly a 65/35 split against the trade, which shocked me. I understand that it's an attractive prospect for some folks, like Rany and Royals Review, to criticize this deal: Jacobs is exactly the sort of player that allows them to snap into analyzing mode and break down all his flaws, point out how he doesn't walk a lot, how he'll be more expensive now than before, etc. etc., and criticism always makes for more interesting writing. Here's the thing: we already know he's not perfect. We can read from the second paragraph of Dick Kaegel's news story (linked above) that Jacobs's OBP was a paltry .299 last season. But that's not the point: the Royals aren't expecting Mike Jacobs to be Mark Teixeira. They expect him to improve from years past -- and he should, considering his age and Major League experience -- and to be an upgrade over the Royals' current crop of corner infields.

Is there risk involved? Sure. But let's not blow things out of proportion here. Suddenly Dayton Moore's incompetent because he dared to trade for a young power hitter?

I like this trade, and like Clark Fosler of Royals Authority, I also would've done it. Consider these three points:

All the Royals gave up was a reliever, and a middle reliever at that, and an inconsistent one, and one prone to injury.

Here's how reliable relievers are in the Major Leagues: the 2007 Cleveland Indians' bullpen, anchored by Rafael Perez, Rafael Betancourt, Jensen Lewis and Joe Borowski, posted a 3.73 ERA, fourth best in the league. This past year's Cleveland Indians' bullpen of roughly the same guys -- with Betancourt closing to begin the season and Perez as the setup man, minus weak-link Borowski and adding high-profile Japanese free agent Masahide Kobayashi -- posted a 5.11 ERA, which was exceeded only by the Texas Rangers in crapitude.

Look at the Tigers' bullpen woes. Look at the Mets. Look at the Rays, which came into this season with only two established guys -- Dan Wheeler and Troy Percival, who are supposed to be in their decline phases -- yet ended up having the third best relievers' ERA in the AL. You realize former Royal J.P. Howell, a guy who has consistently sucked over the course of his baseball career, suddenly posted a 200 ERA+ and became one of Tampa's most dependable relievers? Who can project these things?

Here's the point: relievers are fungible, through and through. It wasn't too long ago that the Royals had the absolute worst bullpen in the league and looked liked they'd never get their act together. How long did it take Dayton Moore to get that turned around? Half a season? One at the most.
Jacobs is young, hasn't peaked, is relatively inexpensive even in his arbitration years (3 to 3.5 million) and instantly becomes the Royals' best home run threat. You understand the Royals haven't had a 30-HR guy since Jermaine Dye's 33 in... you ready for this? ... 2000. The year freakin' 2000! No one wants to admit they play for the three-run home run, but no one wants to live with the prospect that they have no chance of ever hitting a three-run home run. (I understand the Royals hit plenty of three-run home runs last season, but you understand my point.)

As Craig Brown of Royals Authority pointed out, "[Jacobs] homered once every 14.9 at bats, which ranked 10th in the Majors and among first basemen trailed only Ryan Howard and Albert Pujols."
The Royals would otherwise enter spring training with a glaring weakness at either 1b or DH -- we're assuming Billy Butler will fill one but not both of those roles (I, unlike Rany, do not believe he has played his last game as a Kansas City Royal, and I'm disappointed that someone with as much mainstream journalistic legitimacy as Rany would devote five paragraphs to why Butler is so great and GMDM would essentially be an idiot to unload him, even at the right price, on nothing more than a hunch) -- as anyone who believes Ryan Shealy or Kila Ka'aihue is ready, right now, to play 140 games at the corner infield is kidding themselves. They could be ready by March, and maybe one or both of them will win a roster spot, but as of this instant both are merely Major League replacement-level players. Ka'aihue could use a full season in Omaha, and Shealy... well, who knows? He had one good month and suddenly everyone believes he's part of the corner infield of the future. (Okay, I admit: that's what I wrote in this blog's third-ever entry, but that was so 2007.)

The other guy, Ross Gload, isn't worth mentioning. We can only assume he will not be the Opening Day starter.

The arguments against the deal are sensible, but, again, let's keep some perspective. I have a hard time understanding why this deal is such "a terrible idea," and, frankly, don't know how anyone can say so with such impunity -- other than, of course, because all bloggers reserve the right to be as big or small of a jackass as we please, and lest we forget, we are all jackasses.

Welcome to Kansas City, Mike. We at IDWT embrace you with open arms.

Although... you could draw a few more walks next year. Just sayin'.

A post-celebration video from Philadelphia

2008-10-30T22:45:00.002-04:00

Via Deadspin:

POSTSCRIPT: And a post-game column worth reading, from Phil Sheridan of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

There was a police officer standing along the warning track near the Phillies' dugout. Fans were throwing him things - towels, paper, whatever - and he was scooping up just a bit of the dirt and throwing the souvenirs back. It was one of the most beautiful things you could see.

When I came to the clause "fans were throwing him things," my mind automatically read that as "fans were throwing things at him." Nice to see Philly's happy side for once.

Congratulations to the Philadelphia Phillies, 2008 World Series champions

2008-10-29T23:40:00.005-04:00

Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

Now let the bad headlines flow like champagne:

ESPN: Phinally!
SI: Philly's Drought Ends
Yahoo: Phinally Phillies (this is the sound of me groaning...)
Fox News: Wonderphil!
MLB.com: Phil up your shopping cart with WS champs gear and OctoberPhest: Philly completes historic clincher! (I swear I didn't make those up.)
NBC: A Phillies Finish Worth Waiting For! (This is me shocked -- shocked! -- to see, not one, but two F's in a headline.)

And fphinally...

AP: A long time coming: Phillies win the World Series

And this time they didn't even have to beat the Royals.

A win well deserved.

Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

The 2008 World Series...

2008-10-25T20:24:00.003-04:00

...is on.

In Hong Kong for the weekend, so I'll just recommend this analysis of Dayton Moore's trades from the folks at The Royal Tower.

Bill James on the Royals' young talent

2008-10-23T20:17:00.004-04:00

He ranks the Royals fifth. Gotta like that.

And this, as he writes in the Bill James Handbook 2008, to be published Nov. 1:

They have little veteran talent, but if a couple of guys step forward, they could win 85-90 games in 2009."

Via Jeffrey Flanagan's Over the Top blog.

Introducting: Royals Prospects, a new blog

2008-10-22T10:36:00.004-04:00

The Major League Baseball season may be winding down (there's some sort of serious series coming up later today?), but fall and winter leagues around the country are just warming up. A good way to stay updated: Royals Prospects, a new blog run by a former Rangers fan who just moved to Missouri from Dallas, Texas, and who now calls himself a Royals fan through and through. (This isn't the same Rangers fan as Rangers Fan, who's appeared on this site before.)

As Internet savvy Kansas City baseball fans have known for a long while, the Royals have as devotees some of the best bloggers and baseball writers in the country -- folks like Joe Posnanski, Rany Jazayerli and Rob Neyer (if you can still call him a fan), so well known I don't even have to link them. And sites like Royals Review and Royals Authority employ, hands down, the best writers in their respective companies (Sports Blog Network and Most Valuable Network). And there are the inveterates, folks who have been writing about the Royals for years, like Lee Warren, and team-run blogs like The Royal Treatment that could, we're guessing, field one heck of a softball squad. And show me one other baseball blog written by an artist whose work appears in a New York erotic magazine.

Still, with all that, Royals Prospects fills a need: where else are we to get updates from the Arizona Fall League and Hawaii Winter League, or to learn the exploits of fan favorites and soon-to-be favorites like Rowdy Hardy? (He's not doing so well.) The Pipeline has filled that role admirably for some time, but it never hurts to get a helping hand.

Welcome to the blogroll, RP.

The King is dead. Long live the King

2008-10-19T23:47:00.000-04:00

TBS showing a sign held by a Rays fan to open the 9th: "The Improbable Dream"
Chip Caray: "The improbable dream indeed."
Next sign shown, also by a Rays fan: "The Pit of Dreams."
Chip Caray: Confused silence.

Congratulations to the Tampa Bay Rays, your 2008 American League champions.

And boy were they deserving.

Congratulations to David Price.

Congratulations to Matt Garza, who made me eat my words from earlier this morning.

This will be a good World Series.

An in-game question

2008-10-19T23:17:00.003-04:00

Q: How many pitchers does it take to protect a two-run lead?
A: As many as it takes.

Dan Wheeler, J.P. Howell, Chad Bradford... now bases loaded and it's your turn, David Price. No pressure, rook.

UPDATE: Well, that was a ball, but... nice job.

Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox, your 2008 American League champions

2008-10-19T08:08:00.004-04:00

It's inevitable. Believe that. When the Red Sox won Game 5, I saw a commenter say the Red Sox were "up two games to three." Was there any doubt they'd win Game 6 behind Josh Beckett? And, really, is there any doubt they'll win Game 7?*

Contrast Beckett's expression in the picture below with his expression here, from last season's ALCS.

AP

And I have a sinking suspicion it won't be close, though I'll be rooting for a good game.

*Yes. That's why you should watch.

Unbelievable

2008-10-17T00:23:00.004-04:00

In the middle of the game TBS's cameras caught a Rays fan in Fenway giving the crowd the shush sign. At that moment Tampa was up 7-0 behind its ace Scott Kazmir and was well, well on its way to clinching in five, much as the Phillies did the day before. Who can blame the guy for feeling good about himself and his team, boisterous and boastful?

Except someone forgot to give him a history lesson.

The team that can score off Mariano Rivera while down three games to none can surely score off Grant Balfour. The team that can come back from a three games to one deficit to a scrappy Indians squad in 2007 can surely brush aside that "scrappy" label when applied to another up-and-comer. And the team that plays the best version of modern baseball I've ever seen can surely come back from a seven-run deficit. Right?

I just didn't expect it.

Who did?

Four runs in the 7th, three more in the 8th, with the first and last of it coming with two outs -- this in front of a crowd of 38,437, which is 105.2% capacity. And wouldn't you know, the rally in the 9th started with two outs, culminating in the game-winning run. 8-7 Red Sox. The biggest comeback in postseason history in 79 years, folks.

The fire gods rejoice!

Chip Caray asked a poignant question: as devastating as the Game 2 loss was for the Red Sox, could this loss be equally devastating for the Rays? I know this whole "momentum" business doesn't amount to much, but it's interesting to ponder, is it not? We all know, of course, what happened in the two contests after Game 2.

A screenshot from our friends over at D-Rays Bay.

Via the same website:

Comment of the day: Kill a Sox fan...it'll make you feel better.

POSTSCRIPT: In Dayton We Trust neither encourages nor condones the killing of Red Sox fans.

UPDATE: Just noticed Joe Posnanski also titled his postgame blog post "Unbelievable." And beat me to it...

Congratulations to the Philadelphia Phillies

2008-10-16T07:30:00.002-04:00

“This is for the city for Philadelphia,” manager Charlie Manuel said.

AP

World Series-bound.

A wistful moment

2008-10-15T21:37:00.005-04:00

Cole Hamels, the Phillies' young lefty ace, has the Dodgers by the tail and on the brink of elimination. It's at a time like this I'd like to make an observation.

I don't care how many times I see it, Greg Maddux's strikeout pitch -- you know the one, the two-seamer that cuts into the inside corner of the plate against lefties after getting them to buckle their knees because it starts that in -- is always a thing of beauty to behold, every time. Other pitchers have that sinker, but I'm not sure any use it as well, or have used it as well for so long.

Fox showed a 1987 Cubs team picture with Maddux standing beside Jamie Moyer -- now on the Phillies -- prompting Tim McCarver to say the most poignant thing I've heard him say all series: "Yesterday when we were young."

Indeed.

POSTSCRIPT: Maddux's pitch is much better than this, which was, really, high and outside.

How the Phillies won Game 4

2008-10-14T22:46:00.001-04:00

I'm really not sure. The Dodgers looked like they'd ride their bullpen to an easy victory, and I could see all the next-day newspaper storylines: small-ball prevails, Dodgers' big park works to team's advantage, home team wins yet again, etc. etc.

And then the Phillies struck: a long ball by Shane Victorino that snuck over the low right-field fence. A moonshot by Matt Stairs that soared into the night. These were off LA's two best active relievers, so there was nothing cheap about them. Just like that, the Phillies led7-5 in the 8th and were on their way to taking a three games to one lead.

A good series so far, and I hope it continues.

***

"Who are these guys?" one of the TBS announcers just said about the Rays. I'm just as incredulous: they're up 13-2 in the bottom of the 8th.

They've outscored Boston 22-3 in Fenway. Of course, certain other teams have had chances to clinch at Fenway without being able to do so. Yankees 2004, up 3-0, had two chances and lost both before losing the series. Indians 2007, up 3-1, went into Fenway needing to win one of two -- you remember, of course, they did not.

The White Sox did clinch at Fenway in 2005, so it's not as if it can't be done. But I'm hoping this series gets extended. Give me cowbell, or give me death!

Royals hire former All-Star, former Blue Jays manager

2008-10-13T22:05:00.003-04:00

The credentials are good on these two: Jay Gibbons, former Blue Jays manager, is the new bench coach (Dave Owen moves off the bench to fill Luis Silverio's vacated position as third base coach), and Kevin Seitzer, former Royals third baseman, is now the hitting coach.

Story here.

With Dayton Moore's emphasis on getting on base, you may wonder what sort of practical, real-world experience Seitzer brings. In his four full seasons in Kansas City -- including his excellent 1987 rookie season, when he made the All-Star team and finished runner-up to Mark McGwire for Rookie of the Year -- he posted OBPs of .399, .388, .387 and .346. If we throw in his 115 plate appearances in 1986 and 263 PAs in '91, his final season in Kansas City, we'd get an OBP of .378. Over 12 seasons, he got on base at a .375 clip, or better than anyone from the 2008 Royals with the exception of Kila Ka'aihue, who posted a .375 OBP in 24 plate appearances. (David DeJesus's .366 OBP led the team among qualified players.) In other words, it looks like Moore's serious about this on-base business.

As for Gibbons, far from being remembered for leading the Blue Jays to a second-place finish in the ultra-competitive AL East in 2006, he's probably known as the guy who got into publicized phsyical confrontations with two of his players, Shea Hillenbrand and Ted Lilly. For the record, Gibbons calls himself "easy-going, fun guy," and we're not worried about those past skirmishes. As we all know, the Royals don't employ thugs like those baby seal-killers out north.

And if I may squeeze this in: Mac-n-Seitz -- Seitzer's baseball company in Kansas City -- sounds an awful lot like a promotion for a monster truck rally, does it not? Mac-n-Seitz: Monday! Monday! Monday!

This whole 9=8 thing...

2008-10-13T06:58:00.005-04:00

From an interesting read by Yahoo's Jeff Passan:

This proof, provided by Michigan State assistant math professor Ignacio Uriarte-Tuero, would seem to prove that, in fact, nine does equal eight, as Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon has asserted all year.

It doesn’t, of course, as nine can’t equal eight. Though the error is difficult to spot. Can you find it?

Step 1: Let x = y. Multiply by y to get
xy = y²

Step 2: Subtract x² to get
xy − x² = y²− x²

Step 3: Factoring, we get
x(y − x) = (y − x)(y + x)

Step 4: which simplifies to
x = y + x

Step 5: and now using that x = y we get
x = 2x

Step 6: Simplifying again, we get
1 = 2

Step 7: so that when we add 7 to both sides we get
8 = 9

Step 8: or put in other words,
9 = 8

And if it hasn't already been brought to your attention, the Rays won Game 2 of their series 9-8, in 98 innings, in the 98th year of Red Sox baseball, at precisely 9:88 p.m. on the 9th of 8 with 9 men on an octagonal field...

For my money, Phillies-Dodgers has proven the more interesting series. Last night Russell Martin got hit again (twice!), while Dodgers pitcher Hideki Kuroda -- who looked like a dead-man walking the next half-inning, dreading what he had to do -- threw a ball above Shane Victorino's head in retaliation, prompting, after getting Victorino to ground out to first, a bench-clearing staredown. If this, my friends, were a mystery novel, we'd say Game 3 has moved us out of the exposition. And soon, the murder.

Appreciating the baseball playoffs

2008-10-11T00:10:00.004-04:00

As this MLB.com article puts it -- calling out Royals fans in a manner of speaking -- anyone can appreciate the postseason:

Just because these two clubs aren't kissin' cousins doesn't mean the Mets, and really, New Yorkers, can't appreciate what the Phillies have done. They can appreciate it just as much as Royals fans, Mariners fans or Padres fans can. At the end of the day, it's baseball.

It's not just baseball. It's Actober!

Oh wait... that was last year. Here's the 2008 version:

Who comes out on top? We do.

POSTSCRIPT: Funny sign at the Red Sox-Rays game in St. Petersburg, Fla.: "South Florida: a colony of Red Sox nation."

Red Sox-Rays Game 1 live blog

2008-10-10T22:15:00.017-04:00

We pick it up at the conclusion of the 5th inning, where Dice-K has eight strikeouts and four walks. He has not allowed a hit.

What's always amazed me about Dice-K is his ability to adapt to the game. I don't know any pitcher who's so unfazed by allowing walks, because it just always seems like he minimizes the game of baseball to a simple confrontation between himself and whoever's in the batter's box, tuning everything else out. And I think he believes he can get a strikeout any time he wants.

10:20 p.m. ET: Give it to these Rays fans: they know how to make noise. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have metallic tintinnabular instrumentation.

10:25 p.m.: Second baseman Dustin Pedroia just robbed Carlos Pena of the team's first hit with a sliding stop of a one-hopper... in the outfield.

Evan Longoria, swinging on 3-0 (as he should have), just popped out to J.D. Drew in foul ground.

Last year, while Clay Buccholz was en route to tossing a no-hitter in Fenway, there was talk of whether to pull him in the 9th if he came to his pre-assigned pitch limit. That discussion probably isn't happening tonight with Dice-K. This was a man, remember, who threw 250 pitches in a 17-inning game in high school -- and won, of course. Two games later, after pitching the previous game in relief, he threw a no-hitter for the championship.

10:33 p.m.: The announcers just asked themselves whether Mark Kotsay, with runners on first and second and none out, would try to bunt.

"I think they do," said Buck Martinez.

To which I thought: c'mon. These are the Red Sox, who employ a Harvard grad as GM and Bill James, among others. This is a team that knows modern baseball and has little use for sacrifice bunts.

Kotsay did not bunt, instead popping out to Akinori Iwamura behind second base.

10:35: Jed Lowrie should have been called out on the 0-2 pitch. Perfect curve ball by James Shields ruled high.

Four pitches and two minutes later, the ump gives Shields a pitch that may have been high. You give a little, you get a little, I guess.

10:39: Pop-up. Inning over. God Bless America.

I thought it was only Fox that used American Idol rejects for the singing of God Bless America.

David Archuleta wasn't half bad though, and the Idol connection may have been coincidental -- a Miami native, Archuleta makes a believable case for being a Rays fan... as much as anyone can make that claim, anyway. (Tampa's got some incredible bandwagon fans, probably the best in the country. Remember when the Lightning made their run at the Stanley Cup? No? Oh, right... cause they play hockey.)

10:44 p.m.: Carl Crawford, hard hit to right.

Dice-K's opposing BA with runners in scoring position was .164 during the season, which isn't all that surprising: he gets tougher in jams, deploys more of his weapons, almost as if, knowing you want a sacrifice fly, he has you where he wants you.

Dioner Navarro looked overmatched with runners on first and third and none out. He could have been called out on a 1-2 sinker; instead, he popped out to shallow left. Then Gabe Gross swung meekly through a 3-2 two-seamer, this before swinging and fouling off a 3-1 change-up that was out of the zone. Next batter grounded into a fielder's choice to short.

"He continues his masterful work," Chip Caray said. Masterful indeed.

Nice to have two and a half aces, Boston.

11:01 p.m.: Pitching change for Rays. Time for my MLB.tv International Postseason streaming to buffer up.

I said buffer up!!!

Former Royal J.P. Howell is on the mound. He promptly allows a stolen base.

A note to Gabe Gross: it's called a layout, and it looks like this. Try it next time a ball falls just three feet in front of you.

Crawford can't come up with a sinker off Kevin Youkilis's bat and the Red Sox now lead by two.

11:15 p.m.: High and tight pitch drills J.D. Drew on the right shoulder. Scary.

11:18: Grant Balfour blows a 3-2 fastball by Jason Bay with the bases loaded. Gutsy execution.

It's precisely moments like these that seem suspended in time when viewed from the present tense. In about five minutes, we'll look back at this moment, with fans rising out of their seats and bells banging at an ever-quicker, ever-madder pace, and see it as a "turning point," either when the Red Sox blew the game open or the Rays somehow managed to get out of this veritable jam. And when looking back, this moment will have context, shape, contour. Now, however, in present tense, it's as if our everyday flow of things has been stopped -- our breathing, our blinking -- as we await the next pitch. Nothing else happens. The future is untold. The path unforked. The choice yet unmade by the forces which dictate the direction of our universe.

Pop-out. On to the bottom of the 8th!

Red Sox up 2-0 and Matsuzaka is back on the mound to face the top of the order. I'm not sure about this decision to leave him in. The 108 pitches don't mean much: it's the fact that he labored so hard the previous inning, and after escaping without allowing a run he must have felt a certain sense of relief or satisfaction. Now he's asked to rebuild that intensity, this after cooling down on the bench while the Red Sox took their sweet time scoring their run last half-inning.

Iwamura singled, then Dice-K sails a pitch past Jason Veritek's glove. I'm convinced: Terry Francona should've gone to his bullpen.

11:34 p.m.: Francona goes to his bullpen again, this after Hideki Okajima, on a 3-0 pitch, retired the one batter he was brought in to retire.

I was fine with giving the batter the green light on a 3-0 pitch when Matsuzaka was pitching a no-hitter and not making any mistakes. When you have runners on first and second and none out and you're into the opponent's bullpen? No. Absolutely not.

Evan Longoria followed by grounding into a double play, and suddenly an entire state of baseball newbies learn about the precious devilry of following this excruciating sport. It'll tempt you and tempt you and tempt you to the edge of Shangri-la before pulling the carpet and sending you tumbling into a pit of darkness and despair.

David Price is awesome, and it's an incredible shame the Royals were only two losses away (100 losses to Tampa's 101 in 2006) from getting the rights to draft him last year. I just want to put that on the record before we head to the last half-inning of this game.

Here's how the 9th inning went:

11:55 p.m.: Jonathan Papelbon blows three fastballs past Carl Crawford: 95 mph, 95 mph, 96 mph. (with one ball in there).

11:59: Infield pop-out.

Midnight: am I seeing this right? With the game still going on, there're two people leaving? From the exit right behind home plate? Tell me I didn't see that right.

12:01: Navarro strikes out swinging.

See you tomorrow. I only hope the Rays don't get swept, because these Red Sox are really, really good.

NLCS: Two games in Philadelphia

2008-10-10T19:36:00.002-04:00

That sound, persistent and dizzying, during the 6th inning of Game 1 of Dodgers-Phillies wasn't just a buzz: it was a stadium's full-throated acclamation for its hometown heroes. Or it may have been an infestation of locusts. Either way, this was, mind you, before Chase Utley's game-tying home run. Under these environs, you just knew something would happen.

And it did. The turnaround -- from 2-0 to 3-2 -- was stunning, happening so fast it may have been legerdemain. Utley's homer barely in the books, Pat Burrell took advantage of an obviously tiring Derek Lowe and sent a screamer into the left field bleachers, with Manny barely moving. The Phillies would not relinquish their lead, nor would the fans lose their voice.

Then there was Game 2, which we'll just jump straight to the finish: Nomar Garciaparra, always known as a free swinger, made up his mind to swing three times before he got to the plate. Three Brad Lidge sliders later -- each going a bit farther out of the zone than the preceding -- and we all witnessed the easiest strikeout we'll ever see in postseason play.

2-0 Phillies. But this series is coming back...

POSTSCRIPT 1: A columnist war? Philly Inquirer's John Gonzalez on LA Times's T.J. Simers:

For shame, Simers. If you're going to be lazy and clichéd, you can't half-(rhymes with pass) it. You must press your full backside against the keyboard.

In his defense, Simers works in a city teeming with dispassionate transplants. When catering to the botox crowd, you have to write in broad generalities, lest they furrow their brows in a vain attempt to understand.

POSTSCRIPT 2: This is awkwardly worded, but nonetheless (MLB.com):

Tampa Bay sold out and won both of its games in the AL Division Series, and it went 23-2 this season in front of a home audience of more than 30,000. The Rays' growing attendance, coupled with a newfound belief that they can win, has the Trop finally lending some identity to its oft-beleaguered franchise.

23-2 in front of home crowds exceeding 30,000. Almost makes up for the fact that the place looks like a cankersore patch.

Dayton Moore on the record

2008-10-09T00:00:00.003-04:00

From a Joe Posnanski column:

“That’s it,” he says. “We’re at a point now where you will never, ever hear me say again that we have young players who are improving. You will never, ever hear me say again that we are rebuilding. That stuff is over. I’m sick of all that.
“We’re not a young team anymore. We’re not an improving team anymore. There are no more excuses. It’s not like we made a lot of excuses before, but I’m sick of all that. It’s time now.”

So far, this attitude has manifested itself in non-player changes, such as the firing of scouting director Deric Ladnier, hitting coach Mike Barnett ("'We have to understand the importance of on-base percentage,' Moore says, and he repeats those words — 'on-base percentage' — about 29 times during the interview") and third-base coach Luis Silverio. There's little room for free agents -- not with Gil Meche and Jose Guillen making $23 million next year, about half the payroll -- and it's unlikely we'll get any blockbuster trades, since the best tradeable parts -- Zack Greinke, Joakim Soria -- are players nearing primes that may vault them to superstar status.

Here's an interesting quote, the kicker:

“I just can’t predict what kind of opportunities we’re going to have,” he says. “All I can tell you is that there’s a lot more urgency going forward. We’re going to create as many options as we can. We’re going to do everything we can to make changes. There’s a lot of room for us to get better. And right now, that’s all that matters. We have to get better.”

There's a lot of room for us to get better is both the most obvious and most revealing quote in the article. Precisely because there is a lot of room for improvement, one has to wonder whether improving just six games from 2007, in a season when the division was arguably its weakest in years, was enough. As we move forward, we have to expect the rate of positive change to level out as the team presses up against external factors. The win-total graph as plotted against time will not slope upwards indefinitely, and certainly not at the derivative rate of one. I think this is what Dayton Moore was getting at: it would have been so much more comforting if the team could have jumped to 82 wins this year. As is, we're left with the unsettling idea that this rebuilding process -- or are we not to call it that again, ever? -- is still two years, at least, from fruition. Maybe Moore understands -- sees as plainly as anyone -- that another six-win improvement won't make the Royals relevant, thus the heavy and urgent rhetoric. I hope so, because this I know: abandoning plans is not what we need.

A few days after speaking with Poz, Moore spoke with Dick Kaegel of MLB.com:

"We're going to try to upgrade every place on the field. That's what we're going to have to do," he said. "Realistically, you're not going to change out 25 players, but we've got to develop a mind-set where we've got to upgrade every place on the diamond."

Nothing terribly revealing in the article, but the desire to improve -- hastily -- is apparent. In the coming winter months, it'll be interesting to see how that desire manifests itself.

Postseason 2008, so far

2008-10-08T22:03:00.007-04:00

It's nearly impossible keeping up while traveling in Yunnan Province (I'm writing from a Lijiang Internet bar as we speak), but this must be said: the baseball playoffs are absolutely amazing. I just got the first inning of the second game of the Dodgers-Cubs series on MLB.tv, and when Manny Ramirez struck out on three pitches, I momentarily forgot everything I'd read about how Cubs fans have given up on the team and hate the team and are saying "It's Never Gonna Happen" and etc., etc.

Of course, then I remembered: this was when the series was still 1-0, before the Cubs would commit four errors the next inning while giving up four runs, lose 10-3, then get swept.

***

I don't know what to say about losing a series due to a missed suicide-squeeze bunt. Gut-wrenching. The call was absolutely correct, though: Reggie Willits was out.

I think Thom Brennaman put it best: "Sometimes you play for a run. Sometimes you lose by a run."

***

Another word on Boston: I don't know what it is about Fenway, but the place just looks different in the postseason, in a way you can say about only a few other stadiums or arenas. I don't just mean the paint and bunting: it feels different, even on Internet TV. Hard to explain.

***

Milwaukee's crowd > Philly's crowd? Philly's crowd vs. LA's... no contest.

Not sure if any of them compare with the White Sox crowd, however, with their black out. White homer hankies are so 1991... and not to mention they inhibit people from applauding.

***

Evan Longoria is awesome. And sort of related: Harold Reynolds may have plenty of detractors, but I for one am happy to hear him back in the booth.

***

A World Series prediction: Dodgers over Rays in 6.

"We'll wait"

2008-10-05T05:20:00.001-04:00

This seems as good a time as any to reprise this:

To Cubs fans: we'll wait with you. Because this now-100-year saga can only end one way.